Nightmares
by WandererInTime
Summary: The universe holds many secrets. The Doctor and Charlie dare to uncover one of them when they journey into an ancient temple on a forgotton world. The Doctor's going to need help when he comes face to face with one of his greatest nightmares. (Twelfth Doctor Adventures 8)
1. Prologue

**Author's Notes**

**Twelfth Doctor Adventures part 8.**

**WARNINGS: This adventure follows some of the darker themes explored in previous instalments, with allusions to mental health issues, including depression and self-harm. I try to depict characters as 'real' as possible. I in no way intend to glorify any of these issues through storytelling - I encourage anyone suffering from a mental health problem to seek help, either from a doctor, or a friend you trust.  
**

* * *

**_The story so far..._**

In spite of Kate Stewart's warning, the Doctor is still travelling through time with Charlie – they have saved each other's lives a few times now.

Charlie may have earned the Doctor's trust, but there are dark forces stirring. The Doctor's faced with more questions about his companion: Who is Nate, and what significance does he have in Charlie's story? And what is it about the boy that doesn't quite make sense?

The end is coming for the Doctor and Charlie…

* * *

_What is your worst nightmare?_

_What is the one thing you fear to see in your dreams?_

_What are you so afraid to admit?_

The Doctor was getting close to working out the truth, wasn't he? Is that why you chose to act?

Did you have any idea what would happen next?

Let's take a peek, shall we?

"No. No!"

The voice was screaming, so afraid.

Then, so quietly: "I've made a mistake."

* * *

_Three months earlier…_

The world was heaving with kids tumbling over one another in an attempt to escape this hellish place.

Chaos.

Screams.

The shorter kids were shoved back through the doorways they were fleeing from, as a train of footballers rampaged through the building.

It took half a minute for eighty percent of the kids to escape from the building.

Now, there were just a few stragglers, who clearly weren't too fussed how quickly they claimed their freedom – just as long as they did.

It was at this point, Charlie Drake decided that it wasn't suicidal to walk the opposite way down the corridor, and it was safe to leave the classroom and go find his locker.

This was Charlie's school and sixth form college. A place he would be all too happy to leave behind someday soon.

He ambled along those ransacked halls, locked in a virtual world as he scrolled through the texts on his phone.

Someone bumped into him, almost knocking his mobile out of his hand.

Charlie sighed, spinning round to confront the careless schoolkid – when he realised it wasn't a kid at all. It was an old guy. Some teacher or caretaker he sort of recognised, but didn't really know. He'd probably just seen him somewhere around the school.

It probably wouldn't be worth an hour's detention to demand that he look where he's going next time.

He found his dented locker, and opened it.

These were the sixth form lockers – unlike all the other school lockers, they had once been painted a brilliant blue, a symbol of sixth form superiority, demanding respect. Which of course explained why half of the locks were busted. If you wanted to keep something safe, you didn't leave it in a locker.

Charlie chucked his books to the back of the locker space, and grabbed his hoodie.

A pamphlet for a university poked out from underneath a stack of old exam papers, and he cursed silently.

The thought of making the decision on where he'd be in a year's time filled him with dread.

He was about to shove it back into that wretched corner of his locker, and forget all about it.

After a moment's thought, he changed his mind, and crumpled it into his pocket instead.

Maybe it was time to confront his fears…

"Charlie…" Nate voice uttered from the other side of the metal door.

His heart sank.

Charlie slammed his locker shut, revealing Nate standing awkwardly behind it.

"Can I talk to you for a moment?" Nate's voice was a little higher than usual, as though he was working up the courage just to speak to him.

Charlie threw him an unimpressed look.

"I know you've been avoiding me," Nate continued, staring down at his shoes; a pair of battered sneakers, barely holding together after years of abuse.

"I haven't," Charlie snapped, immediately going on the defensive.

"You have. I-I honestly don't blame you."

"Right. Fine," Charlie dismissed, looking around at the last dregs of students milling about in the corridor.

Nate was aware of them, too.

He sighed, pulling agitatedly at his lips.

"Can we go somewhere? I don't want to talk here."

"I'm busy," Charlie protested.

Nate frowned. "But school's over."

"I've got stuff to do."

"Like what?"

"I've got these physics papers to get done before tomorrow. And I need to think about university stuff."

"That doesn't matter," Nate grunted.

"Yes it does!"

Nate shook his head, blinking rapidly.

"Just… just let me explain," he whined.

"You don't need to," Charlie spat, a little more forcefully than was strictly necessary.

Nate looked hurt. He was taking short, sharp breaths, like he was on the verge of a panic attack, or about to throw up.

"I screwed up. I'm sorry," he managed.

"You don't need to apologise," Charlie uttered, a little more carefully, this time.

"Please. I am." Nate was almost begging. "If you're not talking to me because I'm… you know…"

"I don't!" Charlie took a deep breath, and began again, calmly. "I don't care about that, Nate."

"I know you don't," he mumbled in reply.

"That doesn't matter. I just…" Charlie bit his lip, fumbling with the keys in his pocket, "I don't want _this_ in my life right now."

Charlie finally looked at Nate.

Nate was on the verge of tears. His blue eyes were shimmering; wide and pleading.

Charlie felt a sharp stab of anger. He had an urge to shout at him – vent all of his frustration in an intense burst of rage.

He held back, though. He didn't want either of them to get hurt.

Nate's eyes, vulnerably underlined with a cluster of freckles, turned to the words on Charlie's t-shirt.

"I think I understand, but…"

Charlie interrupted him. He couldn't let this drag out any further. He had to get away.

"I've got to go home, Nate."

"Charlie, please just…"

Nate shook his head, pinching his eyebrow in frustration.

"Charlie, please…"

Charlie couldn't think of a refusal. "Okay. Well."

Nate stopped. He stopped begging for them to talk. He gave up.

"Okay. _Bye_. Charlie."

Nate's voice was tense, quivering. Holding back a tsunami of emotion.

Charlie pulled himself away.

It was like there was a thread, pulling away the fabric of his world. Everything was unravelling all around him, and he was doing nothing to try and stop it.

He turned around, and walked away. Out of the building, out of the school gates, and down the street.

Nate was ringing him.

Charlie ignored his name flashing up on the screen.

He felt a little guilty as he switched his phone off, and shoved it back in his pocket.

The guilt was bad enough for him to stop, and turn back for a moment.

Maybe he should go back.

He couldn't make up his mind. Was he ready to face what he was _really _afraid of?

No. Not yet. He needed some space. He needed time.

He kept on walking. The paving slabs slid beneath his feet as he drifted home.

"Tomorrow," he said aloud.

Tomorrow was Saturday. Loads more time on a Saturday.

It wasn't really about the time though.

He wasn't busy at all.

"Okay, tomorrow. I'll wait 'til tomorrow," Charlie promised himself.

That guilt he felt echoed through his mind, tormenting his future, invading his dreams. It called out to him in his nightmares, tormenting him in his future travels through time and space.


	2. Reunited

_Now…_

A hulking black SUV tore up the tarmac of the London streets, charging past ordinary cars coasting along in the lull before the morning rush hour.

A stony-faced Kate Stewart glared out of the tinted glass, barely registering the city's landmarks drifting past, as a light drizzle bespattered the windscreen.

She had been silently fuming for the entirety of the fifty minute car ride, as she mulled over her warning to the Doctor.

She had seen something in his eyes before he stepped back inside the blue box. Defiance, perhaps. If he didn't listen to her, this wouldn't end well.

She'd reached her wit's end, and demanded that the Doctor meet her back at UNIT headquarters. She hoped to god that he would be there when they arrived. But the man had a time machine. It might only be fifty minutes for her – but it could be days, months even, before the Doctor decided to turn up.

She just hoped that he _would_ turn up.

The sparse trees lining the road were lashing back and forth. The wind was almost reaching hurricane proportions, swiping hats and umbrellas from unsuspecting pedestrians.

There was a storm on its way, and Kate had a feeling that something terrible was happening.

The car pulled up outside the Tower of London, but there was no sign of the TARDIS.

Accompanied by her armed guards, Kate strode towards the building, keeping her coat pulled tightly around herself to fend off the vicious cold.

As she passed a group of snap-happy tourists taking selfies, she saw a young woman in a smart blouse run up to her, shoulder length auburn hair whipping furiously in the wind. She had a smart tablet clutched in the crook of her arm.

Kate recognised her, but it took her a moment to realise why she was struck with the feeling that it was odd to see her here.

"Doctor Simmons?" Kate raised her voice, so she was audible above the noise of a military chopper passing overhead. "Last I checked, you were posted on the Moonbase."

Out of breath, Simmons shook her head.

"What is it?" Kate pressed her.

"Ma'am," Simmons gasped for air, "it's the Doctor. He's here."

Although Kate hoped the Doctor was here because of her orders, she knew better.

The Doctor's presence was more likely to mean he had not heeded her advice; he'd left in the TARDIS with the boy.

"Where is he?"

_And what_, Kate wondered, _has he done?_

"He's in your office," Simmons mumbled, avoiding Kate's stern glare.

"Dear lord, the arrogance of that man!" Kate growled.

The Doctor could be infuriating sometimes. How he could get into her office was a mystery. The Tower of London, the hub of UNIT operations in the UK, was protected. The building was so heavily reinforced, not even the TARDIS was able to penetrate the walls.

No, it wasn't a mystery – this was the Doctor. That man was impossible.

Kate entered the Tower, flashing her pass to the sentries at the gate. Simmons scurried close behind her.

"Did he say why he was here?" Kate asked, as they stepped into an elevator; a chunk of grey clanking machinery conspicuously embedded in the stone wall.

"He was rather evasive on that subject," Simmons answered, as the lift doors closed. "In fact, he's not speaking to anyone."

"He's not listened to a word I've said," Kate uttered sharply.

Simmons nodded, distracting herself from Kate's bitter grumbling by staring at her tablet.

Kate watched the young scientist for a moment as she prodded the screen of her device, skimming over UNIT files on the Doctor.

Simmons eventually broke the silence, noticing Kate's interest. "I've been trying to establish his position in the timeline." She pulled up an image of the Doctor's craggy features. "Twelfth incarnation. Some time after the Moonbase incident, going by the hair."

Kate processed the information. She had known about the Doctor almost all her life, yet his ability to turn up at any point in their past or future made keeping track of him rather difficult.

Thus UNIT, as one of the few organisations the Doctor would co-operate with, had developed a system with which they could map out any encounters they had with the Time Lord, and use it to work out precisely when they were dealing with him – and which Doctor they were dealing with. A spotter's guide to the Doctor, if you will. It wasn't a hundred percent accurate, of course. Members of UNIT had let slip information about the Doctor's future to him before now.

"So he survived the Arachnid attack," Kate muttered, "And he didn't regenerate."

"No, we think he's yet to visit the Frost Fair with the student, Miss Potts," Simmons quickly suggested. "And besides – I think Charlie… found a way to save him."

"Yes, thank you Doctor Simmons," Kate grunted, "Put the I-spy guide away. We've got more important things to worry about."

Simmons paused for a moment, flicking her tablet into standby. "What do you mean?"

"The boy."

"Charlie?"

"Yes."

Simmons shook her head. "I don't understand. Why would he be a problem?"

Kate shot her an imposing look. "You know we screen all of the Doctor's companions as soon as we find out about them?"

Simmons blinked. "Yes, but-"

"He _shouldn't_ be travelling with him."

"I was there on the Moonbase, ma'am." Simmons stared intently at her, chocolate brown eyes pleading his defence. "I've spoken with him."

"I'm well aware of that, Doctor Simmons," Kate sighed.

"He's not a bad person," Simmons insisted, unconsciously tensing into a confrontational stance. "The Doctor trusts him."

"And the Doctor's judgement is _completely reliable_, I suppose?" Kate countered.

Simmons withdrew.

"Granted…"

"Doctor Simmons, we have enough evidence to theorise that, given the opportunity, the boy could cause serious damage to our reality. Colonel Callisto will have my head!" Kate barked.

Simmons remained silent, respectfully allowing Kate to vent her frustration.

The lift doors hissed open, and they stepped out.

The slick modern interior was in complete contrast with the antiquated architecture of the surface levels. Computer interfaces lined the whitewashed walls. Glass doors opened automatically for them as they walked.

"The Doctor should never have taken him."

"I don't think Charlie could…" Simmons protested.

"He has a motive – and a time machine. That never ends well." Kate ended the argument.

They stopped outside a thick wood-panelled door, engraved with Kate's name and authority. She indicated that her guards wait outside her office, and she spoke her name into the biometric security panel to the side of the door. The sound pattern was analysed; cross referenced with a database of high-ranking UNIT officials, and was accepted, returning an affirming bleep.

Kate pushed her way into her office, and discovered the Doctor inspecting the certificates framed on her wall. She glared at him. The Doctor didn't seem to notice.

She beckoned Simmons to follow her in, and slammed the door shut behind her.

Kate Stewart's office was furnished in the style of an Oxfordian university professor's, rather than a clean military room like her father used to have.

A timeworn oak desk stood proudly in the centre, a comfortable leather chair tucked beneath it. Opposite a series of aluminium filing cabinets was a pair of display cases, complete with trophies, medals and trinkets from past missions. There was, for instance, a small black cube, although Kate was not really sure why she had kept that.

The photograph of her father was on the wrong side of the desk, she noted with some annoyance.

"What are you doing in here?" Kate demanded, "This is my private office."

"I couldn't find mine," the Doctor explained, keeping his back to her as he continued to stare at the articles pinned to the wall.

"You don't have one," Simmons interjected apologetically.

"Oh." The Doctor was disappointed. But Simmons suspected that the casual disappointment was just a distraction, obscuring his true emotions.

The Doctor's mood probably wasn't improved by Kate's explosion of anger, as she unleashed her pent-up frustration at him.

"Where is the boy? You took him with you, didn't you?" Kate roared. "I warned you not to. I gave you an order – and you completely ignored me! Why don't you ever listen?"

"Stop shouting," the Doctor snapped, twisting round, his eyes burning with a fire that eclipsed Kate's fury.

The corners of his lips were quivering – a tiny signal he was concealing so much pain, so much anger.

Kate swallowed back the lump forming in her throat, and softened her tone. "What has he done?"

"He's not done anything," the Doctor growled.

"Where is he? Is he with you?" Simmons asked.

The Doctor's eyes flickered towards her.

"No." The words escaped the Doctor's lips in barely a whisper; a ghost of a breath.

"He is… he is okay, isn't he?" Simmons asked, not without a hint of nervousness. "He is still alive?"

The Doctor did not reply, and avoided her eye.

He focussed on Kate instead – fixing her with his fierce, hawk-like glare.

"I need you to tell me _everything_ you know."

She nodded. "I think you'd better follow me."


	3. Your Innermost Secret

_Earlier…_

The Doctor knew something was up, even now.

He had been skirting around a little issue for a while, now. Charlie was keeping something secret from him – which the Doctor was determined to find out. All his attempts to uncover the truth had so far failed.

Now he was going to try a more direct approach.

Well, a subtly direct approach... in a roundabout way.

That thing with the kitten had been a minor distraction. (And so had all the other adventures, now he came to think of it). Now he could get back to the matter in hand.

Charlie was lounging in the Doctor's favourite leather chair on the upper level of the TARDIS console room, his nose in a book. A book he really shouldn't be reading, the Doctor reflected: for him, it hadn't been written yet.

Charlie was still, lost in his world, oblivious to the Doctor's restless pacing around the control room.

"Hmm…" the Doctor muttered loudly (no response), before wandering off.

He pondered on his problem as he absent-mindedly proved the existence of a new subatomic particle on the blackboard tucked away beneath the TARDIS console.

Charlie had started to open up more as of late, which was promising, but as soon as he was asked about the parts of his life from before they began their time travelling adventures, he would become somewhat cagey, giving very vague answers – often lies.

In many ways, the lies were a self defence mechanism – because lying was always easy. Particularly if you take the example of an _'I'm fine'_ when asked if you're ok.

But some lies can be dangerous. The Doctor had a feeling this was one of the dangerous ones. This seemed odd. Despite all the warnings Kate Stewart had sent his way, he didn't believe that Charlie was dangerous.

Perhaps he was hiding something that was. Whatever – or whoever – it was, he needed to know.

The Doctor resurfaced, drawing as much attention to himself as he could as he dashed back up the steps.

Ironically, the Doctor admitted, he was going to have to put on a bit of an act in order to coax Charlie into revealing his secret. Rule one and all that. Hopefully, the minor deception would be worth it, and dispel his fears.

"Where to go?" he said aloud, gesturing grandiosely – as he often did when posing a hypothetical conundrum.

"Always the problem, isn't it?"

The Doctor grinned, watching Charlie's eyes flicker momentarily from the book, only for them to be drawn back with some kind of magnetic force.

He raised an eyebrow.

"The TARDIS can go anywhere," he continued, "On the other side of those doors, is _everything_. Infinite worlds, in infinite time."

"I _know_ that," Charlie uttered under his breath.

He didn't think the Doctor could hear him – but he'd forgotten how good these Gallifreyan ears were.

"21st Century Earth is quite nice, but it gets boring after a while."

The Doctor's hand curled around the brushed metal railing that led the way up the stairs to the upper level.

"And there's this patch around 2016-ish that I really like to avoid…"

He rushed up the stairs, pausing at one of the bookcases, a few feet behind Charlie.

He pulled out a random book. _The Wizard of Oz. _Fascinating story. Except it wasn't fictional – but that was a tale for another time.

"And you know what?" the Doctor resumed his spiel, sliding the book back into its place, and sidling closer to Charlie.

Leaning on the back of the boy's chair, he whispered:

"I can't make up my mind…"

Charlie paused, but pretended he was still reading.

The Doctor could tell that he was listening to every word. He hadn't turned the page in some time.

Backing away from the chair, the Doctor grinned. "I thought _you_ could decide."

Charlie turned round, his eyebrows knotted. "_Me?_"

"Yes. You. Where do you want to go?"

The Doctor turned round, and skipped down the stairs.

His arm outstretched, he began to circle the TARDIS console.

"Where's the one place in the universe – in all of time and space – where Charlie Drake really wants to go?"

He stopped, thrusting his knuckles into the cold metal of the control panels. The Doctor leaned across the console, tempting Charlie with some enticing suggestions.

"The mystical moons of Caratian Four? The peaceful, yet technologically advanced world of Dymar?" The Doctor shrugged. "Or perhaps a jamming 'sesh' with David Bowie? Lovely man. Fabulous musician."

The moons of Caratian Four weren't that mystical. They vanished from time to time, but there was a perfectly reasonable explanation for that.

He could see the gears churning in Charlie's head. A number of expressions passing briefly across his features. Confusion? Concern? Excitement?

"What about that first one you said?" Charlie offered.

"No. No, no, no. Not where _I_ want to go. Where do _you_ want to go?"

"I – I don't know."

There was a strange tension in his voice. He _did _know. He knew exactly where he wanted to go. But where? And why? What was his plan?

"You _could_ pick at random…" the Doctor tempted him.

Charlie's brow furrowed. "You can do that?"

"Oh yeah."

The Doctor pointed to the panel with all the orange goo in it.

"Stick your hands in there."

Charlie stood up, and edged closer to the console.

"What will that do?"

"It'll randomly pick out a location from all the places you really want to go to," the Doctor explained. "Even if you don't know what they are."

The Doctor gestured towards the panel again, seeing Charlie's hesitance.

"Oh. Okay."

Charlie tentatively pushed his fingers into the orange jelly – very cautiously, as though he was expecting to receive an electric shock.

Of course, the Doctor realised, he _was_ expecting to receive a shock. Had the boy been sticking his hands in when he thought the old man wasn't looking?

The Doctor put his hands on Charlie's shoulders, hoping to reassure him.

"Now, concentrate," he urged, "Where do you want to go?"

Charlie's eyes were clamped shut, his eyebrows twisted in deep concentration.

"Let your mind focus on the moment. Picture the time, the place."

The Doctor peered at him. Charlie was silent – breathing a little heavily, but otherwise silent.

"You doing that?"

"Yeah…"

"Good. Keep doing that."

The Doctor ruffled Charlie's hair, encouragingly.

The action was largely ignored, which was just as well.

It wasn't a mere friendly gesture, but a ruse to plant a thought in Charlie's mind. A single psychic question projected to Charlie's subconscious: _Who's Nate? Tell me the truth._

The Doctor pulled away, watching his friend intently, and slammed a lever on the TARDIS control panel. The engines roared into life; the resounding chorus of the TARDIS tearing through the time vortex reverberated through the console room.

"How long do want me to do this for?" Charlie asked, after a while. Neither of them had uttered a word in a few minutes. He had grown uncomfortable with the lack of words.

"Until I say."

"When will that be?"

"When we land."

Charlie nodded, adjusting his grip in the sticky fluid; the TARDIS trembled.

The Doctor counteracted by flipping a series of switches to stabilise the ship's flight path.

"Concentrate," he warned.

He checked the TARDIS' systems. The engines were still going. The Time Rotor rose and fell, pulsing with energy.

He had only used the new telepathic circuits a couple of times. They weren't always one hundred percent reliable, but still… twelfth time lucky?

Finally, the engines faded, grinding to a halt with a familiar thud.

"That's strange…" the Doctor muttered, pressing his fingers up against the swirling Gallifreyan symbols filling the screen, as he examined the space the TARDIS had materialised in.

"What's strange?" Charlie asked.

"That wasn't what I was expecting at all."

"How do you mean?" Charlie pulled his fingers out of the telepathic controls, and joined the Doctor by the TARDIS screen, wiping his hands on his hoodie in disgust.

"Well, we've landed, but I don't recognise the coordinates. Do you?"

Charlie looked at the swirling arcs and hexagons swimming around the screen, and turned to the Doctor.

"I can't read that."

"Ah yes."

The Doctor pressed a button on the console.

The circular symbols were replaced with a series of numbers, superimposed over a scene of space outside the TARDIS doors.

Charlie seemed distracted by the dancing purple formations, reminiscent of some kind of squid, its tendrils flicking out across space.

"Recognise it?" the Doctor asked.

"No."

"That is odd, for the one place in the universe you most want to go," the Doctor mused.

"I guess?" Charlie nodded at the picture. "Looks pretty, though."

"Pretty…?" The Doctor peered back at the screen, and took a second look at the shimmering patterns unfolding across the TARDIS monitor. "Yes, I suppose it is."

The Doctor tapped at the purple squid.

"You know, that looks a lot like the Jagarovian Nebula."

"So you _do_ know it?" Charlie teased him.

"I know _of_ it," the Doctor admitted, "I've seen pictures. But I've never been here before. It's a long way from home. From both of our homes."

Charlie shrugged. "If you don't like it, we could always try again? Go somewhere else? I don't mind."

The Doctor peered at the boy for a moment.

"Are you serious?" he exclaimed. "You've chosen this place – here, now. And neither of us knows where it is. Doesn't that fascinate you?"

"Of course it does." Charlie faked a grin. "Just not what I was expecting, that's all."

Charlie's melancholy gazed locked onto the serene scene of space on the monitor.

Okay, he wasn't lying, then.

"Shall we take a look?" the Doctor suggested.

"Yeah."

"Awesome!" the Doctor grinned, heading for the door.

"Hold on," Charlie uttered. He backed up against the TARDIS console, a bemused look upon his face.

The Doctor stopped, throwing Charlie a confused glare. _What now?_

"Did you just say... 'awesome'?"

The Doctor frowned.

"I, uh… might have done…"

Was he going a bit far with the false enthusiasm? Was Charlie cottoning on to his game plan?

Charlie chuckled, pulling his phone out of his pocket.

He bit his lip, noticing something on the screen, and peered over at the TARDIS console.

Finding what he was searching for – to the Doctor's amazement – Charlie plugged his phone into a charging socket in one of the control panels.

The Doctor raised his eyebrows. He could have sworn that the socket hadn't been there before.

Seeing the Doctor's bewilderment, Charlie explained: "The battery's low."

"Right…"

Deciding that he didn't care about trivial human matters like phones and social media, the Doctor turned his back on the console, and swung the police box doors open. It was dark outside. Even the light from the TARDIS seemed to be swallowed up by the space beyond the doors.

There could be anything out here. There was a distinct feeling of dread creeping in through the TARDIS doors, and it made him a little apprehensive.

For once, the Doctor didn't feel that stepping blindly into the darkness was a good idea. He took out the sonic screwdriver.

He adjusted some settings, twiddling with the mechanism, until the red metallic emitter ring folded away; spinning gyroscopically as the LED was reinforced by far brighter lights.

He directed the powerful torch beam outside, but it had no effect on the wall of darkness outside the TARDIS.

"It's dark," Charlie commented.

"It's funny, but I _had_ noticed that," the Doctor muttered, stretching his arm out into the darkness. His arm - and the screwdriver - virtually disappeared.

"There is definitely something here?" questioned Charlie. "There isn't just, you know, nothingness?"

"Let's find out," the Doctor replied, "Shield your eyes."

Charlie did as instructed, and the sonic issued an intense flare – brighter than a sun.

It took Charlie a few moments to recover from the sudden flashbang, but the Doctor had already memorised an image of their surroundings revealed by the split-second of light.

"I don't recognise this place," the Doctor muttered, "Not at all."

He pulled the sonic back into the light of the TARDIS, and scratched his chin.

"I didn't see anything," Charlie admitted.

"It's old," the Doctor stated. "Primitive, almost."

"No light switches, you mean?" Charlie quipped.

"I wouldn't say that," the Doctor muttered with a smirk, and waved the sonic in the manner of a conductor's baton.

Something glowed red-hot in the space ahead, and burst into flames.

There was a rusting iron brazier in the centre of the room outside; the fire bathed the surrounding chamber in a warm, orange light. Flickering shadows played upon the stone slabs covering the floor, obscured beneath a thick layer of moss. Figures danced across the cracked walls, distortions of the metal creatures caging the fire.

The TARDIS had landed inside some kind of derelict temple – left abandoned for centuries.

Charlie poked his head out of the TARDIS door.

The walls towered over them, seeming vast, yet claustrophobic at the same time.

The chamber was massive; the floor spanning about half the size of a playing field.

The Doctor was already skirting around the walls, igniting flaming torches with dainty flicks of the sonic.

Charlie pulled the door of the police box shut, and inspected the central fire. Six iron snakes, blackened with soot, twisted their way out of the ground, dancing around the flames.

The yellows, reds, and oranges circled around, flickering fiercely, lashing out at the serpents. Charlie found the fire drawing him in, hypnotising waves of warmth and light enticing him nearer to the crackling flames.

"What do you think?" asked the Doctor, wandering the room, inspecting the walls, as though he were meandering through an art gallery, not an alien temple.

Charlie shrugged. He wasn't sure how to explain the feelings he had. "I was expecting something a bit more…"

"Something a bit more exciting?" the Doctor suggested, his eyebrows twisting excitedly.

"Yeah," Charlie agreed, "Something less…"

"Boring?"

"Well, _yeah_."

"You're right!" the Doctor called out at the bare stone walls. "There's nothing here. No doors. No windows."

"No doors?" Charlie pondered.

The Doctor turned to him, a smile creeping across his face. "Oh – very good!"

"There has to be a door somewhere," Charlie reasoned, crossing the room to stand by the Doctor's side. "This can't just be a place no-one can get into."

"Probably. Although, not every creature in the universe actually needs doors."

"Well, that's…"

Charlie was silenced by a deep rumbling noise. Two gigantic archways rolled open, severing the stone walls in two.

"Ohh!" the Doctor roared in awe. "Automatic doors! An advanced civilisation, then?"

Charlie sighed.

How many times? Automatic doors were _not_ a sign of advanced society. Although these doors were made of solid stone, so it was pretty impressive, all things considered.

"Ah, look! Door signs," the Doctor uttered, gesturing towards a tableau of engravings that had been revealed in the sides of each archway, at about shoulder height.

The etchings were subtle, barely noticeable among the stones due to centuries of erosion.

The Doctor bent over to examine the patterns, his nose hovering inches from the stone.

"What does it say?" Charlie asked.

"I have no idea. I can't read it at all."

The Doctor glared at the stone, daring the engravings to torment him further.

"I thought the TARDIS translated everything."

"It has," the Doctor muttered, his fingers tracing the bumps in the wall. "But it's still too complex for me to understand."

Charlie almost laughed. "Really?"

"If I didn't know better, I'd say this was the exit."

"Oh, good," Charlie acknowledged brightly, nodding energetically.

"Boring," the Doctor corrected him.

Charlie followed the Doctor as he dashed over to the other archway, and began meticulously studying the engravings there instead.

Charlie wasn't sure what the differences between the two were.

"You have a go. Feel that." The Doctor tapped the inscriptions, so Charlie reached for it. He ran his fingers across the smooth stone, feeling the pattern of the engravings rise and fall beneath his skin.

"Oh, is it like braille?" Charlie realised. "Sensory writing?"

"Yes, very much like braille," the Doctor agreed sarcastically, "In the same way that two tin cans tied together with a bit of string is like an iPhone."

"It's three dimensional, in simplest terms," the Doctor explained. "It appears to be a language based on feel, and energy."

"That sounds a little vague."

"Yet it allows far more precision and distinction in tone than any of our dialects," the Doctor argued.

"Still can't read it though," Charlie countered.

"Never say never," the Doctor protested, maintaining an air of dignity and wisdom, "I think I can decipher it, but it'll take time. I'll scan it with the sonic, and leave it running a translation algorithm."

The sonic buzzed, casting a harsh glow over the rock.

"Judging by the larger volume of characters, it's offering a more detailed description. Directions, perhaps. Which leads me to conclude that this doorway leads us deeper into this place."

"I wonder what it really says," Charlie mused, "Knowing our luck, it probably says _'danger: keep out'_."

"_This is a sacred place of worship – do not touch the artefacts,_" the Doctor joined in.

"_Private property, no trespassing,_" Charlie added.

"_Pete woz 'ere._" The Doctor grinned childishly, and tapped the sonic again.

"Anything?" Charlie asked.

"Not much," the Doctor conceded. "I've got the gist of it."

"Go on…?"

"There's energy here." The Doctor's eyebrows shot up.

"What? Something else?"

"That energy…" the Doctor muttered, slowly, hesitantly. "Feared and revered… It's a temple – a place of worship. A shrine of some kind."

He turned to Charlie, his eyes suddenly deadly serious.

"This place has a secret," the Doctor uttered, his tone grave. "Seen only by those who dare to find out."

He was silent for a moment – but that stillness vanished as the Doctor grabbed one of the burning torches, his restless energy reignited once more.

He brandished the torch ahead of them, pointing into the darkness beyond the archway.

"Want to find out what it is?"

"Oh yeah!" Charlie grinned.

_"So do I,"_ the Doctor muttered under his breath, taking one last look at the TARDIS as he crossed the threshold.


	4. Interview With the Companion

_UNIT HQ, Now..._

Kate and Simmons took the Doctor through to a conference room on one of the converted upper floors of the Tower of London.

A large, oval table formed the centrepiece of the room, from which a pleasant view of Tower Bridge was visible, stretching proudly across the river.

Although most of UNIT's operations at the Tower took place underground, away from the general public, there were several official meeting rooms above the surface. Kate tended to find that the world's top brass preferred a room with a view.

The Doctor slumped into a swivel chair, and waited for Kate and Simmons to sit down. However, they remained standing, hovering over his shoulder.

"Oh!" Simmons uttered, as her tablet _pinged_. "We've found the TARDIS, ma'am."

"Where?" Kate asked quietly, watching the Doctor, his back to them, fume silently.

"Earls Court Road."

"But that's miles away! Why did you leave it there?" Kate directed her question to the Doctor.

The Doctor half turned his head, his tired eyes betraying his meandering thoughts.

"I needed a walk. Needed some time to think," he answered simply.

"We'll have it brought in," Simmons offered.

"Make sure we get the right one," Kate added, before striding around to the other side of the table, so she could see the Doctor's face.

"I don't know how the boy managed to convince you to let him inside the TARDIS-" Kate began.

"He didn't _convince_ me," the Doctor interrupted contemptuously, rubbing his eyebrows. He was radiating irritability.

"Well, be that as it may," Kate regained her composure, "The boy must have lied to you, otherwise you would not have let him step foot inside that time machine."

The Doctor looked at her for a moment, and then his gaze dropped to inspect the polished marble finish of the table.

"Perhaps."

"How long has it been since we spoke?" Kate queried.

"I don't know. A few weeks. Maybe more," the Doctor answered in frustration. "Look? Are you going to tell me what you know about him, or are we just going to sit here _yammering_ all day?"

Kate nodded. "Most of what we know about the boy comes from our interviews."

"Hold on," the Doctor stopped her, stretching his hand out accusingly. "You _interviewed_ him?"

"It's standard protocol," Kate replied, studying the Doctor's furled brows. "We screen your companions in the Black Archive."

"You do this with all my friends? How long have you been doing this?" The Doctor's tone was fierce.

"Since about… 2005, I believe," Simmons chipped in.

"It's for your safety as well as ours," Kate insisted.

The eyebrows bore down on Kate. "Do you think I am incapable of choosing my own friends?" the Doctor spoke coldly.

Kate leaned over the table, fingertips pressed against the surface of the table. The bad cop in a police drama.

"You're one of the most important people on the planet. You're the World President, for God's sake! It's in all of our best interests to make sure you're with friends who can be trusted. Imagine if one of them was an assassin…?"

The Doctor snorted. "Or, _ooh_, I don't know… a psychopath specifically engineered to kill me?"

He waved his hands, dismissing the subject.

"Fine. I don't want to hear any more about it," he grumbled. "And I want it on record that I _don't_ approve."

Kate nodded slightly, her lips pursed.

"Are you going to show me this or not?" the Doctor uttered sharply.

"Yes." Kate backed away, grabbing a remote control from a jumble of computing equipment behind her.

The window overlooking the Thames faded to black, transforming into a computer screen.

Simmons flicked off the light switch, plunging the room into semi-darkness.

The Doctor stared intently at the images, as a recording of UNIT's interview of Charlie Drake played out on the screen.

They were looking down on a scene set in a cramped room, where three people were sitting around a table.

_"This is UNIT psychiatrist Andrew Taylor," _a thin-faced man with a receding hairline spoke. He pushed his fragile spectacles back up the bridge of his beak-like nose.

"_Also present, UNIT head of science and operations, Kate Stewart," _he added, looking across at Kate, who was sat next to him, flicking through a series of bound documents tucked away inside a musty brown folder.

He leaned closer to Charlie, who was sat across the table from the two of them. The lighting was so low, it looked like an interrogation. Charlie was clearly feeling the pressure; he was hunched up, as small as he could make himself, rubbing his arms nervously.

_"Do you know why you're here?" _the psychiatrist asked. His tone was level, precise. Extracting information without trying to be empathetic.

_"No,"_ Charlie answered quietly. His voice was trembling.

_"It's nothing to be afraid of. We just want to ask you a few questions."_

_"About what?"_

_"About someone who is… of particular interest to us."_

Charlie shrugged, trying to protest his innocence, even though he didn't have a clue why they were making him feel guilty.

_"Who do you mean?"_

_"Have you met someone named 'The Doctor'?" _the psychiatrist pressed.

_"The Doc…? No, I don't think so."_

Kate laid out a number of papers on the table. The psychiatrist slid them across to Charlie.

_"Could you look through these photographs, and tell me if you recognise any of these men?"_

The pages contained pictures of a dozen different people – which the Doctor recognised as his previous incarnations. The ones that UNIT knew about, anyway.

Charlie's gaze lingered on the last image – the Doctor's current face.

There was a very subtle micro-muscular response which suggested Charlie had seen this face before. The Doctor suspected that it was subconscious – he probably wasn't even aware of it if he did recognise him.

Which was odd, the Doctor mused, because at this point in Charlie's life, they were yet to meet for the first time.

_"I don't know any of these people."_

The psychiatrist raised an eyebrow.

_"You're absolutely certain?"_

_"Yes!"_

_"Then this complicates matters," _the psychiatrist muttered, glancing at Kate.

_"Why?"_

_"Because it means you haven't met him yet," _Kate said.

_"Yet?_" Charlie looked between the two UNIT officials, confused._ "I don't understand?"_

_"It's not important," _the psychiatrist

_"No? I don't… who is he? Is he… is he… some kind of terrorist or… something?"_

_"No, no. Quite the opposite," _Kate quickly corrected him.

"I'm just going to skip forward a few minutes," Kate intervened. "He didn't know anything about you. No hidden agenda or motives directed against you."

"Well that's nice to know," the Doctor muttered icily, his gaze still locked on the screen as the video sped through several minutes of Charlie shrugging and gesticulating frantically, whilst the psychiatrist barely moved at all.

"But there was this,"

_"This isn't making any sense," _Charlie moaned, practically burying himself in his arms.

Kate skipped forward a few more frames.

_"…to ask you about your therapy sessions with Mrs Lyndley. Or rather, your reason for going to them," _the psychiatrist continued. His tone remained unchanged, whilst Charlie was becoming more frustrated, anxious, and scared.

_"Why?"_

_"I realise this is a difficult subject for you, but it is quite important. And we are a little concerned about it."_

Charlie was visibly shaken.

_"I… don't get why you're asking me this?"_

_"You started going to therapy session because of a recurring nightmare, yes?"_

_"Yeah, but…"_

_"Why did these nightmares start?"_

_"What's this got to do with anything? About aliens, or this… Doctor?"_

Kate glanced at the psychiatrist, before making a decision, and speaking up again.

_"All I can say is, at some point, you're going to meet the Doctor. And we need to be sure… we need to be sure that you're ready for that."_

The Doctor broke away from the screen for a moment, glaring at Kate. She held his gaze, unapologetic. She was watching him, and his reaction to the video, even as he returned his attention to the footage.

_"Do you know what triggered the nightmares?"_ the psychiatrist asked.

_"I don't know."_

_"Why did they start?" _the psychiatrist asked, a little more firmly.

_"I…" _Charlie shook his head, trying to shrink back into his chair.

_"Charlie?" _Back then, Kate was being considerably more human than this psychiatrist. What had changed? Why was she being so stern now?

_"Why did they start?"_

Charlie's eyes were locked on his hands, which he was rubbing in agitation.

_"Nate…" _Charlie breathed, barely audible.

The psychiatrist seemed unfazed. Evidently he already had this information. The Doctor would almost say that he was trying to force a confession out of the boy.

As much as he would hate to admit this, it was a confession the Doctor was hotly anticipating, for therein may lie the missing pieces to the puzzle that was Charlie Drake.


	5. Deeper Into Darkness

_Earlier…_

Charlie had to admit, this really wasn't what he had expected.

When the Doctor had said the TARDIS would take him to the place he most wanted to go, he had anticipated something… a little closer to home. Not this. An ancient ruin on a planet in the far-flung reaches of the universe.

The Doctor's torch flared, setting alight a criss-crossing trail of cobwebs, which burned out a moment later.

It distracted Charlie from his sketches. He had been drawing a map as they had been meandering through a maze of corridors. The Doctor had assured him that he would be able to remember the way back, but Charlie asked for the paper and pencil anyway.

He couldn't imagine anything worse than being trapped in an infinite maze, with no hope of finding a way out.

It reminded him of a nightmare he once had, where he was lost in the TARDIS corridors. He couldn't remember the details – like all dreams, it had faded as soon as he had woken up. He just recalled the feeling of dread at facing yet another turn leading to another identical corridor. Having a record of their path put his mind at ease, a little bit.

"Oh!" the Doctor suddenly uttered, swinging the torch round.

"What?"

"Dead end…"

Charlie sighed, marking a fourteenth 'X' on his map. "We could always go back to that last intersection-"

"No," the Doctor growled, "We're not going back."

"But if it's a dead end…"

"It's not a dead end."

"You just said-"

"It can't be," the Doctor insisted.

"Why not? What makes this one different to all the other dead ends?"

The Doctor's eyebrows curled, quite sinister in the shadows cast by the torch. "If this is a dead end, then what are _they_ all looking at?"

"Who?" Charlie asked, following the Doctor's gaze. He jumped in alarm when he saw them.

In the darkness, it had been difficult to make out, but he could now see that the corridor was lined with angular stone faces, leering out from the wall.

The faces were petrified, both in the sense that they were carved from stone, and that all of the faces shared the same expression of utter terror. They were unnerving, not least because they looked so realistic, they could almost be real people frozen in the wall. It was as though they had all seen something which had terrified them to death.

What the Doctor had noticed – which seemed obvious now he had mentioned it – was that all of the faces were not simply staring out of the wall, but towards the stone at the end of the corridor. The dead end.

While the Doctor examined the bare wall, his fingers tracing the cracks in the stonework, Charlie inspected the stone faces.

They were all individuals; none of the faces were identical. What also occurred to Charlie, that seemed odd, was that the faces were all human – or at least humanoid in appearance.

As he studied one of the stone faces, his stomach lurched with a distinct feeling of recognition. It was Nate. One of the petrified faces was Nate. How was that possible?

"Nate?" he whispered, dumbfounded.

The hairs on the back of his neck stood erect, and he felt a sharp pain, just shy of his spinal cord.

He quickly explored his skin, and pulled a dart out. It was a vicious, barbed spike, now tipped with his blood.

The vile taste of vomit surged up his throat, burning his insides. He was going to be sick.

"Doctor…" he croaked, staggering backwards, the dart slipping from his fingers.

The world transformed.

The stone walls burned with vibrant, flickering colours, as a lightheaded wave of dizziness washed over him.

All the faces turned to look at him. They struggled to break free from the wall, gurning and grimacing in exertion. Distorted digital illusions fought for his attention.

Charlie lost track of the one he thought had been Nate, as one of the faces - and the slender clay figure it was attached to - wrenched itself free from the wall.

It began to walk forward, towards the dead-end wall. It was like a series of sketchily animated drawings layered over one another, failing to move with any coherent motion.

It reached the wall, and placed a clay hand on the stone.

The figure's head turned round, through an unnatural 180 degrees, and set its eyes of crumbling stone upon him.

_"Charlie?"_

The Doctor stepped through the apparition, making Charlie jump.

"Charlie?" he repeated.

"Doctor!" Charlie responded breathlessly. "I'm okay!"

The Doctor examined him with the sonic screwdriver.

"A hallucinogen has been injected into your bloodstream. It's not toxic, but it's almost certainly going to have some kind of effect on you. Are you sure you're okay?"

Charlie nodded, blinking frantically as he stared at the wall. None of the stone faces had moved. He had simply imagined it.

"You look like you've seen a ghost," the Doctor remarked.

"Yeah. I think maybe I have."

"Do you… want to talk about it?" the Doctor asked hesitantly.

"No."

Charlie brushed past the Doctor, and approached the wall, where the vision of the clay man had stood.

"What are you doing?" The Doctor was glaring at him with an odd look of suspicion.

"I'm not sure…"

Charlie held his palm up to the stone, copying the movements of the clay man.

The coarse stone, coloured with umber hues from the Doctor's burning torch, offered no answers.

His head was still pounding. The bile clawed his insides, dragging him back to the Moonbase, sickened by the sight of hideously deformed bodies. He shook the memory away, swallowing the thick mucus that had formed in his throat – banishing the vile taste back to the pit of his stomach.

His fingers found tiny impressions in the wall, where they seemed to fit his fingertips.

The stone seemed to resist his touch, and he pulled his hand away.

"Ah," the Doctor stepped forward, grabbing Charlie's shoulder and offering him a reassuring squeeze. "Good job."

A crack formed in the stone – not a random splinter cause by forces of nature, but a precisely designed split, opening up to reveal a way through, further into the depths of the temple.

"The entrance!" the Doctor uttered, his eyes alive with fascination. "This is more than a temple. It's a giant puzzle box. An impossible construction!"

He ventured over the threshold.

"Yet here it stands… Untouched for hundreds of years. Drawing us deeper inside."

* * *

The room beyond seemed different. It was as though they were uncovering more and more with each step. The deeper they journeyed, the more secrets this ancient structure would offer them.

New materials jutted from the walls; iron beams pierced the roof, cast in graceful, fluid forms; sculptures once capturing resplendent beauty. They had since decayed into rusting husks.

It was quite a solemn sight, Charlie thought. The remnants of a civilisation, reduced to dust and old relics, as all civilisations eventually would.

The Doctor, glancing only briefly at the architecture, walked briskly to the other side of the chamber, where there was yet another gigantic archway, lined with some metallic ore. He waved the sonic at it, fiddling with a number of settings, before declaring:

"It's deadlocked. No way through."

He diverted his attention back to the contents of the room.

If the Doctor's assertion that they were inside a giant puzzle box was accurate, then they were standing in one of the puzzles now.

This puzzle seemed to involve a strange mechanism, constructed from a series of metal rings spanning the wall. Upon closer inspection, the metal rings had tiny perforations in the surface, through which tiny pinpricks of light projected across the room.

The Doctor and Charlie quickly discovered that by rotating the discs, the spotlights shone in different positions on the ceiling, walls and floor of the room. Despite the height of the mechanism stretching above even the Doctor, the discs were surprisingly easy to move.

"Are these lasers?" Charlie queried, peering at the glistening patterns around him. "Lasers, in an ancient temple?"

"Hmm," the Doctor seemed to agree with Charlie's scepticism, "I think this place is more technologically advanced than it's led us to believe."

The Doctor waved the sonic about; the device buzzing erratically. "Then again, couldn't a concentrated beam of light through a tessellation of magnifying prisms do the same trick?"

Charlie shrugged, "I don't know. But where would the light come from? What kind of light source would still work after centuries?"

"There are certain energy sources which emit light indefinitely," the Doctor responded, glaring at the screwdriver, as if daring the tool to disagree with him.

"Such as?"

The Doctor turned to him. "Fungi which glow in the dark. Microscopic cultures which eat and reproduce, all the while giving off a lovely yellow glow. Something like that could last for centuries, provided the conditions are right for survival."

"So what do you think it's for?" Charlie asked, spinning one of the discs.

Constellation-like clusters of light rolled across the ceiling.

"Oh," Charlie suddenly realised, answering his own question before the Doctor could respond, "It's a map of the stars."

"I suppose we have to line them up, so it matches the constellations outside," the Doctor concluded. "Then it'll activate the door mechanism."

"Wow." A grin crept across Charlie's features, as he marvelled at the ingenuity of the puzzle.

"You're excited, aren't you?" the Doctor said quietly, regarding Charlie's awe with a smile of his own.

"I am a bit. This is amazing! Just… the design that's gone into this place!"

"Yes," the Doctor mused, "I wonder who it's all for…"

"And how the hell do we solve it?" Charlie exclaimed. "We don't even know which planet we're on!"

"That's true," the Doctor muttered, his disappointment audible. "There's no way to be certain what a map of the stars would look like from this world. The constellations are different for each planet. It depends on where you look from."

"Look at that!" Charlie pointed towards a glowing purple blob projected onto one of the twisting metal beams. "Isn't that the nebula that looked like a squid? We saw the stars on the TARDIS monitor, remember?"

The Doctor frowned, darting across the room to scrutinise the purple smudge.

"Yes. Yes, we did. I didn't recognise any of these stars." The Doctor whirled around, gesturing at glittering lights. "Every single one of them was beyond the extent of the observable universe from both our planets."

"You mean, where the stars are accelerating away from us faster than the speed of light?" Charlie queried, recalling a snippet of information from an astronomy module in physics class. "The expansion of the universe is so great that the light from the furthest stars will never reach Earth - or Gallifrey. They're accelerating away from us faster than the speed of light."

The Doctor grinned. "Yes. Glad I didn't have to explain that one to you."

"So…" Charlie bit his lip, eyes flickering hesitantly towards the Doctor, "If you can remember all the stars on that screen, we shouldn't have any problem matching the stars up here."

Charlie couldn't remember any of the positions of the stars on the TARDIS screen, but he knew the Doctor's mind was far sharper than his.

After all those adventures, where the Doctor had put Charlie through his paces, it was time to put the Time Lord to the test.

"In theory, yes…" the Doctor grunted, snapping his eyes shut; eyebrows contorted in a grimace of concentration.

Charlie could imagine the Doctor visualising being back in the TARDIS, passing comment on the shimmering constellations after only a brief glance at the screen.

The Doctor stepped around the hypothetical space, reaching out to some invisible object.

A smile crept across the Doctor's features, and he opened his eyes.

"Got it!"

"You sure?"

"No."

Regardless of the complete lack of confidence the Doctor had just instilled in him, Charlie followed his instructions, rotating the wheels and the pinpricks of light around the room, matching up the universe of stars inside the room to the outside galaxies.

"Are you feeling okay?" the Doctor asked him, just after he had directed the location of the purple squid nebula to the other side of the room.

Charlie looked pointedly at him. Was this question really necessary? The Doctor kept asking – all through time and space - and it was irritating. Right in the middle of a moment of peril, the Doctor would ask him: "Are you okay?"

He didn't want those moments. He didn't want to have to stop and think. He wanted to enjoy every moment of these fantastic adventures. (Barring perhaps the giant spiders)

"Yeah, I'm fine," he insisted.

The Doctor raised his eyebrows. It was a reminder that they had talked about this. He had banned Charlie from saying he was fine, if he wasn't.

"Honestly, I'm fine!"

"You seem distracted," the Doctor remarked, turning his attention away – back to the whirling constellations around him.

"Do I?" Charlie uttered.

"Yes, otherwise I wouldn't have brought it up," the Doctor muttered softly, rubbing his chin.

"Well…" Charlie gazed awkwardly at his shoes.

A thud, from deep inside the walls of the structure, silenced him.

The doorway of solid stone parted for them, revealing yet another chamber.

"Another puzzle," the Doctor concluded. "We're being tested. We can't proceed further into this shrine unless we complete these games."

"It's very _Indiana Jones_, this, isn't it?"

"Yes…" the Doctor conceded, "This deity must have been very selective about its followers."

The Time Lord stared into the fire of his torch for a moment. "Which is rather unusual."

"It is?"

The Doctor looked pointedly at him. His wise old eyes looked haggard in the low light. "Gods and monsters… celebrities on Instagram…"

"Hang on, _Instagram…?_" Charlie exclaimed. It seemed incredible that the Doctor actually knew what that was. He was an old man, but of course, he wasn't human. He had seen Earth's history, and its future. He'd probably defeated it when it became sentient in the twenty second century after absorbing the images and the memories of billions of people… or something…

The Doctor grunted. "They're all the same – always hungry for more and more followers. Why be selective?"

Charlie shrugged. "Aren't you? When it comes to who you let inside the TARDIS?"

The Doctor opened his mouth to retort, but opted to ignore him instead, and move on to the next puzzle.

"What do you suppose we have to do for this one?" he asked, gesturing at their new surroundings as he strode straight through it.

Here, a forest of metal tubes rose out of the ground, like monuments to the dead, all stood at different heights.

It was a strange sight to behold, as though these manufactured metal rods had taken on a life of their own, and had begun growing organically from the ground.

Charlie tapped one of them, flicking it with his nail. It rang with a hollow chord.

A few feet away, another of the metal rods picked up the tune, drawing the sound away, where it faded.

Charlie peered at it, his cogs in his brain whirring as he began to work on the room's puzzle.

On either side of the entrance, two ornamental bells hung from the ceiling.

He almost tripped over taking a step backwards; the ground was littered with circular holes, about the same diameter as the metal rods.

He looked over at the Doctor, who had his ear up against the next archway – locked, of course.

"There's something behind here," the Doctor muttered.

"Another room?" Charlie suggested.

"Before that." The Doctor pulled out the sonic screwdriver, holding it up to the doorway to scan it.

He paused before he pressed the button.

The Doctor's features were so expressive, it managed to convey part of his thought process without needing to say a word.

Charlie saw doubt fade into confusion, before transforming into a heavy exhale of realisation.

The Doctor twisted around, thrusting his thumb over his shoulder as he gaped at Charlie.

"What does this suggest to you?"

"Resonance and harmonics," Charlie replied.

The Doctor raised an eyebrow, encouraging Charlie to continue. He did so, pointing out all the prominent features of the room.

"These metal rods are acting like tuning forks." Charlie _pinged_ one of them again to demonstrate. "There are more holes in the floor where we can move them. If we set them all up at the right height, and at the right distances apart, we can get them to resonate when we ring the bells."

"How does that get us through that doorway?" the Doctor queried.

Charlie puffed out his cheeks. The Doctor picked a fair hole in his theory.

"I don't know? Some kind of receiver, or…" Charlie shook his head, trying to pull an explanation out of thin air. Heavily implied time pressure imposed by the Doctor wasn't helping. "…A mechanism that responds to the soundwaves being generated in the room."

"It would have to be an incredibly precise mechanism," the Doctor concurred, "Probably very intricate… too delicate for the sonic screwdriver."

Charlie frowned, gesturing hesitantly at the Doctor's device.

The Doctor nodded, reading his thoughts. "Yes. Just as well I didn't try to run a scan. I might have locked us in."

Charlie offered the Doctor a vaguely sympathetic half-smile.

"Let's get to it, then," the Doctor declared cheerily.

A great deal of bickering ensued as the Doctor and Charlie did their best to solve the puzzle.

Did the planet's gravity and alien atmosphere have an effect on soundwaves? Would the unidentifiable metal rods transmit longitudinal waves in the same way as other materials? Were there any external factors that could have a dampening effect?

…And should the short pole go there, or _there_?

Charlie wondered whether the Doctor was really arguing with him, or just playing devil's advocate, making sure they didn't overlook anything.

Finally, they agreed on an optimal position for all the metal tubes, so that they would resonate with one another, and amplify the sound waves produced by the two great tubular bells.

"Are you ready?" the Doctor asked.

Charlie nodded, a hammer poised in his hand.

He swung it for all he was worth, the muscles in his arm and upper back complaining under the exertion. Christ, he needed to go to a gym.

The bell rang out, with a loud, triumphant _gong_.

The sound seemed to sweep him up; the waves of noise echoing and bouncing all around the room.

He could see the rods vibrating as the sound built up, quivering like flagpoles caught in a sudden, violent breeze.

The Doctor, eyes closed, focussed on the exact moment to strike the second bell. Time it just right, and it would amplify the soundwave twofold. Hit at the wrong moment, and it could chime with a destructive interference pattern, which would swallow the sound away; slam on the brakes.

Charlie forgot how to breathe for a second, whilst the Doctor swung the hammer. He timed it perfectly.

Perhaps he had slowed down time in his mind, performing complex calculations in nanoseconds. Perhaps he had transported himself back inside the TARDIS, mentally racing around the console, furiously stabbing buttons as he prepared to land the hammer.

Charlie heard the machinery _sing._

His heart beat faster, propelled forwards on the crest of an ocean wave by the sound.

It felt amazing.

Charlie had never felt this good in his life.

It was just noise, an endless resounding chord; but at the same time, it was music, pumping him full of confidence.

_I could do anything,_ he thought,_ I could change the world. I could go to the furthest reaches of the universe, and no one could stop me._

Then, that little thought, which had followed him through time and space, popped back to the forefront of his mind.

_I can save him._

_I can save Nate._


	6. Charlie's Revelation

_UNIT HQ, now…_

The Doctor didn't like this one bit. Not least because it felt like UNIT had betrayed him. They'd abducted and interrogated many of his friends – completely without his knowledge, and certainly against his will.

The video of Charlie's interview was still playing on the blacked-out window.

_"Can you tell me about Nate? Did you know him well?"_

_"Yeah. He was my… best friend."_

_"Can you tell us what happened?"_

_"No. I don't understand. I don't know… I don't know what you want from me."_

Charlie glanced up at the man, but appeared intimidated by the questions.

Kate intervened again: _"Charlie. It's okay. You're safe here. You can trust us. We just need to know the truth. Can you tell us what happened to him?"_

Charlie shook his head.

_"Charlie? What happened to Nathan?"_

The boy was on the verge of breaking down. The Doctor was furious. His fists were clenched, pressed into the table so hard they were turning white.

_"He's dead. Nate's dead. He killed himself."_

Charlie gulped, his arms curling around his head.

_"He killed himself…"_

"Stop," the Doctor ordered.

The video paused.

"Who's Nate?" The Doctor fired the question at Kate.

"Nathan Slate. He went to the same school as Charlie. They're about the same age. He was found dead in his house three months ago. The coroner's report indicated he'd deliberately overdosed on his medication."

The Doctor stopped. Kate couldn't read the emotion in his expression. He seemed both angry and rueful. He pushed his fist under his nose, lost in thought. The words had stunned Simmons. Her hand was hovering inches from her face, failing to hide her horrified expression.

"I see," the Doctor muttered, solemnly, "Some things are starting to make sense. I fear I've made a… terrible mistake…"

"I knew he was keeping something from me…" he looked up at Simmons, pleading with her, "But I… I didn't…" He shook his head. "I never realised… the lengths he'd go to…"

There was a heavy sense of unease in the room, not least because they all knew they should have had a little more faith in each other. Kate broke the silence.

"I'm sorry, Doctor. You didn't know. It wasn't your fault." The ice in her tone was melting. "Charlie's a good person. But," she frowned, trying to draw the correct conclusion, "there was something about him. Something wasn't right…"

"I know," said the Doctor, softly. "You were right to warn me, although I fear…"

"There's more," Kate interrupted him.

The Doctor's brow twitched. "More?"

"There was… a darkness in him. I found it unsettling how… inhuman he was."

"What do you mean?" the Doctor asked levelly.

"I saw a… threat in him. I can't describe it. I think it's best if I show you."

Kate pressed a button on the remote, and the playback of the interview resumed.

_"I'm truly sorry, Charlie. I know how difficult this is." _Kate said softly.

_"I should have been there," _Charlie was muttering to himself, distraught, _"I should have stopped him."_

_"Would you?"_

Charlie looked up at the psychiatrist, his mask of devastation failing for a moment.

_"Would you try and save his life if you could go back?" _The psychiatrist's questions were sharp, unwavering._ "Would you change what's happened?"_

_"Of course I would! I'd do anything to bring him back."_

The Doctor nodded. He knew all this already. Kate wasn't showing him anything new.

As this thought passed through his mind, he noticed a change in the boy's manner.

As though a switch was flicked in his mind, Charlie sat upright, and spoke, confidently and coldly: _"And you know I will."_

The psychiatrist peered over his glasses. _"I beg your pardon?"_

"What was that?" Simmons asked, stepping closer. "Something happened."

The Doctor turned to Kate, demanding an explanation.

"This is what I found so disturbing," she told him.

_"You _know_ I would change what has happened," _Charlie spoke.

_"Can you explain what you mean?" _Kate asked, sharing concerned glances with the psychiatrist.

_"I don't have to explain myself to you, _Kate Lethbridge-Stewart_," _Charlie spat.

The Doctor could see that Kate had been alarmed by Charlie's remark.

_"Oh yes," _Charlie simpered,_ "I know all about you, and your Black Archive."_

_"How can you possibly…?"_

_"Memory altering chemicals, wipes your mind."_

Charlie leaned back and grinned.

_"Which means I won't remember a _thing_ when I leave here."_

Kate looked over at the Doctor. "I didn't understand how he knew so much. He didn't know anything about us when he went in – he passed all the lie detector tests."

"Which were designed for humans…" the Doctor muttered.

"What are you saying?"

"I'm not sure."

_"Which means, I can do this…" _Charlie folded his arms.

_"Kate Stewart," _he spoke, his voice laced with arrogance, _"I _am_ going to save Nate. And I think… you won't be able to stop me."_

He smirked, carefully unfolding his arms and placing them on the table, in a power move which told both Kate and the psychiatrist that he had complete control of the room.

_"None of you can." _

"Wait…" muttered Kate, her startled eyes searched the screen.

"Wait _what?_" The Doctor glared at her in alarm.

A cruel smile crept across Charlie's face.

"I don't remember that…" Kate uttered, transfixed by the recording.

_"Do you know what's happening right now?" _Charlie asked. "_I'm taking control. All of time and space belongs to me, now._

_"Thanks to you, Doctor…"_

Charlie turned, facing the camera - looking straight at them.

Simmons gasped.

_"Knock knock…" _Charlie whispered.

"What? How did that happen?" Kate demanded. "It's changed! The footage has changed!"

The Doctor slowly rose from the chair, a numb feeling bleeding through his body.

"No…"

"Doctor…?" Simmons spoke up, trying to work out why the Doctor seemed so frightened. She needed him to reassure her that he was not scared. Because if the Doctor was scared…

"Stupid! Stupid, Doctor!" he growled.

The video lingered on Charlie's smile for a moment, before it cut off, replaced with black.

Then, as the three of them watched, a word slowly materialised on the screen. Its gradual appearance was taunting them, making them focus on the word. Making them scream for it to appear. When it was finally visible, it read:

VYPER

The screen seemed to glitch, freezing the word in a halo of multi-coloured pixels.

"Vyper? What's that?" Simmons asked.

"A virus…" the Doctor breathed, visibly panicked. "It's here… it's everywhere. All of time and space."

"Doctor?" Simmons questioned, reaching out to him.

He turned to her.

"Our entire reality has been infected."

"By what?"

There were two thumps. Something was knocking on the window.

The Doctor's hearts were heavy, as he slowly turned around.

"The nightmare…" he whispered.

Kate switched the screen off, and leapt back when she saw what was on the other side of the glass.

"Oh my god…"

There was a giant, eyeless mass of a beast suspended outside the window. Its thick, glistening tentacles, covered in suckers, blisters, and god knows what else, slithered over each other in sinister knots. The colours of its diseased body would look more at home in a dank sewer. One of its limbs was poised at the window, snaking from side to side like a cobra.

"What the hell is that?"

There were more of them crawling over the buildings in the distance. The whole of London was swarming with the creatures.

Suddenly, the tentacle darted forward, penetrating the glass with incredible force.

Its other tentacles were groping at the stone wall, ripping the building apart.

The things emitted a sound unlike anything they had heard before. A subsonic roar – felt, rather than heard.

Its tentacles darted forward, and part of the floor gave way. A huge chunk of the wall was tossed aside, and the thing went for them.

They had no time to react. It was fast. The Doctor and Simmons were pulled from the gash in the side of the tower.

Simmons screamed, and they were falling, whilst the world around them erupted into chaos.


	7. Temple of Doom!

_Earlier..._

They had ventured through half a dozen more chambers in this weird place. Each room had contained a puzzle more tricky and treacherous than the last.

So far, Charlie had solved them all. Sometimes he had to work on conclusions the Doctor had drawn, particularly those involving alien elements.

All the while, the Doctor was asking him about… stuff. Teasing out answers.

What had he seen? What effect had that dart had on his body, on his mind? What did Charlie think his greatest desire was?

"I don't know," he kept replying.

They were both acutely aware of this game they were playing. An imitation game, if you will.

And Charlie knew that the Doctor was getting worryingly close to asking certain questions.

He wanted the Doctor to help him set things right, but he didn't know how to tell him.

He wasn't sure now was the right time.

Then again, maybe the Doctor could be convinced. Maybe he could change his mind.

Right now, Charlie was examining the floor. Caked in a thin layer of dust, lay a series of slabs arranged in concentric circles. The slabs were engraved with highly detailed patterns.

"What do you make of this, Doctor?" Charlie spoke up, dropping to his hands and knees to study the engravings.

Precise etchings of circles and arcs, connected by lines, crisscrossed between the slabs. Brushing the dust out of the grooves revealed a flickering reflection of the Doctor's flaming torch.

"You tell me," the Doctor challenged him with a grin.

"I'd say the engravings on the floor are lined with metal." Charlie glanced up at the Doctor. He was tracing the circumference of the room, as he had with all the previous chambers, searching for any obvious exits.

It took a moment for the Doctor to realise Charlie was staring at him. "It's silver."

"Silver?" Charlie repeated quietly.

He stood up, examining the room.

"Silver's a highly conductive material." Charlie scratched the back of his neck. "Couple that information with the pattern; those engravings connecting all the stones together… and I'd say this was a giant circuit board."

"That's incredible," the Doctor uttered, glaring at him.

Charlie laughed awkwardly. "It's quite simple really."

"I know," the Doctor mused, "That's why it's incredible. It's almost like this place was designed for you to solve it so easily."

Charlie frowned, trying to work out what the Doctor was getting at. Was he insulting him? "You mean… like it's meant for me? Like I'm meant to be here?"

The Doctor nodded.

"I ask you to pick the one place in the universe where you really want to be, and we end up here? Neither of us knows where we are – but you've waltzed through here like it's a breeze. You didn't even set off any of the death traps."

"Death traps?" Charlie exclaimed. "What death traps?"

The Doctor gestured back towards the archway they had walked through.

"The ones I would imagine you'd set off if you were to fail any of the puzzles. Floor trips, death rays, jets of nerve gas..."

Charlie cast a glance back into the last chamber, alarmed. He hadn't noticed any real dangers.

"Try not to think about it," the Doctor dismissed the notion in what he probably thought was a reassuring manner. It wasn't.

"Right," Charlie croaked, feeling rather unsure of himself momentarily. "Then I guess we'd better make sure we get this right."

Charlie set to work on the circuit, aligning the patterns so everything joined up.

There were unique markings dominating particular stones – which appeared to correlate with electrical components. In the centre, there was a perfect circle, raised slightly above the rest of the circuit. Embedded in this stone was a transparent crystalline structure, like a precious diamond. It appeared to be disconnected from the other components.

The stone slabs were built upon a devious mechanism – moving the stones pushed the other rings around at different speeds.

As soon as one section was lined up, it would break the others apart. This was going to require a lot of skill, and more than a little good luck and judgement.

If only the Doctor would help him out, instead of staring at the closed archway ahead of them, buzzing at it with the sonic screwdriver.

Charlie sighed, burying his head in his hands.

This was going to take a while.

* * *

He wasn't sure how long he had been so far – but this puzzle was starting to become a bit of a drag.

_You've got to do this, _he thought, _Don't let all this be for nothing._

He let his arms drop into his lap. He stared at them with bleary eyes for a moment. He noticed his scarred arm for the first time in a while. The cuts that tied him to his past. A past he wanted to forget about – but couldn't.

He closed his eyes for a moment, trying to shut the memories out. In that moment – a pair of yellow irises burned before him. Startled, Charlie's eyes snapped open.

He looked over, but the Doctor hadn't noticed him.

The Doctor travelled through time – all across the universe, trying to make things right. Make things better. He always tried to make things better. The Doctor was even trying to make _him _better; through all those questions, and all those tests. Charlie shot another glance at his arm.

He was about to raise a question, when the Doctor spoke.

"This is it. This is the last room."

"What do you mean?"

"There's nowhere else to go. This door's false. It's solid stone. No way through."

"You thought the other doors were pretty solid, too," Charlie reminded him.

"Believe me, Charlie. There is no way through this wall, and there is nothing on the other side."

Charlie shook his head in disbelief.

"There has to be. Why else would we have been lead here?"

"Maybe this is where it ends. This is the last puzzle. Solve this, and we'll finally work out this old temple's secret."

Charlie nodded. Maybe.

He got back to his feet, and got back to work.

The Doctor wandered around, observing him as he turned the circuits, and the concentric stone rings all revolved, countering his movements.

Frankly, the Doctor's constant pacing about was a little off-putting.

"Why else would we have ended up here?" the Doctor repeated Charlie's words.

Charlie shrugged, ignoring the Doctor's questions.

"There's something strange in this very room. It's right there, in front of my nose, but I can't see it," the Doctor muttered through gritted teeth, his frustration visibly plaguing his features.

"Can you see it, Charlie?"

"Not sure," Charlie grunted.

Somehow, Charlie knew that the Doctor's hunch was right. He could feel it.

There was something in this room.

It signalled the end of their trials. It tallied with the Doctor's conclusion that this was the last puzzle.

There was a feeling raging through his chest, quickening his pulse. It was a feeling of power. Like he was getting close to achieving a lifelong goal.

"I think I've done it," Charlie uttered in surprise.

"Well, I thought you'd been done for the last ten minutes."

"I had to double check."

"Completely understandable," the Doctor agreed with a wry smile, presumably pondering over the various death traps concealed in the room. "Now, which of these stones marks the location of the switch?"

Charlie pointed it out, still deep in thought.

The Doctor examined it.

"It's hidden beneath the floor. I can activate it with the sonic screwdriver."

"Yeah…"

Charlie was missing something obvious.

The circuit was complete… yet it wasn't.

It was too late for him to raise his doubts. The Doctor had already hit the switch on the sonic screwdriver, activating the circuit.

"Oh wait…" Charlie uttered, earning a fierce glare from the Doctor. Wait _what?_

There was a gust of wind – a bitter chill that froze his bones. It came from above; a breath from the heavens.

He had made a mistake – and now the ceiling was slowly descending. The ancient booby trap would grind their bones to dust, slowly but surely.

"_We're_ components!" Charlie yelled.

"What?"

"We need to stand in the right place," Charlie called out, looking around the room again.

The Doctor glanced down at his feet. "Otherwise we'd be electrocuted, I assume."

Charlie gulped down a panicked breath, as his mind raced at the possibility.

"Come on, Charlie!" the Doctor urged. "What did you see that I missed?"

"I…" Charlie shook his head, struggling to concentrate, the threat of death whispering anxious thoughts in his mind.

"Come on, hurry up," the Doctor spouted. "We don't want to get locked in. I don't have any spare crystals. And I really don't fancy going back to Metabelis III to get some more. Not after our little Arachnid encounter."

"I have no idea what you just said," Charlie uttered, his eyes darting across the circuit, playing a lightning-fast tracing game.

He needed to concentrate – or they'd both be crushed.

"There!" Charlie pointed to a break in the circuit on the other side of the room.

There were two slabs which could be connected – but no silver lines jumped between the two.

"You need to stand across both of those stones. Complete the circuit with your body!"

"Yes! Good."

The Doctor leapt into position, placing a boot on each of the stone slabs.

"And where do you stand, Charlie?" the Doctor urged, his eyebrows knotted in worry.

_Where do you fall?_

"What?"

"Where do you need to stand?" the Doctor yelled, gesticulating furiously at Charlie's feet.

"Oh…"

He was drawn to that component in the centre of the room. That one component which sat apart from the rest of the circuit. It shouldn't. He needed to complete it himself.

He raced over to it, studying it in a whirl of panic.

He wasn't sure what he needed to do to complete it.

Instinctively, he reached out, and placed his palm onto the jagged surface of the gemstone.

Had the Doctor looked at Charlie at that moment, he would have seen it.

Just for a second, Charlie's eyes flashed with an intense yellow glow, glaring at the world through pupils that did not belong to him.

"_Let me through_," a voice uttered.


	8. London's Falling

_All the nightmares escape my head..._

* * *

_Now..._

The Doctor woke with a start.

"The Nakrathaa!" he exclaimed.

He pushed himself to his feet, scrambling over the rubble dashed across the ground, searching around for Simmons.

"Emily?" he yelled, digging at the fallen stone, desperate to find her.

She couldn't be…

No. She would be okay.

"Emily!"

"Doctor…?" came the dazed response.

The Doctor half-tumbled down the mountain of debris, to where a previously immaculate bush had broken Simmons' fall.

The tablet she had been holding was laying smashed on the rocks, a few feet away.

Luckily, Simmons herself seemed to have sustained relatively little injuries. A few bruises, but she'd be fine.

The Doctor helped her up, and pulled her under the safety of an archway, as she gulped down some panicked breaths.

He risked glancing around the corner, taking in the sight of one of the nightmarish creatures sliding over the ramparts, picking great holes in the old buildings.

"That's impossible!" the Doctor uttered.

He darted back into cover, as an impact shook the foundations of the stone walls of the Tower of London.

"Oh my god…" Simmons breathed, a look of dread blemishing her features as she took in the sight of the destruction around her.

Her mobile chirruped, and the Doctor nudged her. She answered it.

"Kate? Yes, I'm fine. We're both fine," she gasped.

She thrust the phone into the Doctor's hands. "She wants to talk to you."

The Doctor pressed the phone to his ear. "Yes?"

He grabbed Simmons' hand, and pulled her away in a run, dashing for cover by the Tower's battlements as a boulder slammed into their recently vacated hiding place.

"What is that thing?" Kate asked. She was just as startled and clueless as the rest of the UNIT personnel, judging by her alarmed tone.

"It's a nightmare. A Gallifreyan nightmare!" the Doctor growled.

"What does that mean?"

"It shouldn't even exist. The Nakrathaa is just a fairy tale."

"Clearly it isn't," Kate responded icily. Her attention was snatched away for a moment, as the Doctor heard someone talking to her.

"There are more of them all over London," she continued, "They just appeared out of nowhere. What can we do?"

The Doctor sighed, rubbing his forehead in frustration. "Nothing."

Simmons glared at him, wide-eyed.

"What do you mean _nothing?_" Kate demanded. "Don't you know a way to stop them?"

"No – it's a nightmare," the Doctor roared in frustration, "That's the point. There's nothing you _can_ do to stop them. These creatures supposedly drop out of the time vortex, and tear whole worlds apart.

"The best you can do is hide in your little UNIT base and hope they can't get in."

"We can bring out heavy artillery," Kate suggested.

"No. You don't stand a chance against them - they can't be destroyed," the Doctor thundered, "Just hide. These creatures will have identified you as a threat, and they'll tear this place apart."

Kate's voice was lost in a flurry of panicked voices at the other end of the line.

"Kate? Did you hear me?" the Doctor thundered.

"Yes," Kate replied snappily. "I'll call you back when we've reassessed the situation."

The call was cut off; the Doctor passed the phone back to Simmons, with an irritated grunt.

"What happens now?" she asked.

The Doctor raised an eyebrow at her. He didn't have the time to speak the words to ask what she meant.

"If we can't stop these creatures, what are we supposed to do?"

"I don't know."

"What do you mean you don't know?!" Simmons spouted, practically tugging at her hair in distress. "You don't have a plan? You're not going to find a way?"

"I'm not even going to try," the Doctor uttered gravely, his head bowed, deep in thought.

"What?"

Simmons was devastated. This was her hero. The man who stood up and fought against the monsters that invaded her world, and always won. He was giving up.

"You can't do this," she uttered, her voice strained.

"I'm going back to the TARDIS," the Doctor replied tersely, stealing another glance at the creature slithering over the battlements, stabbing the Tower with its tentacles.

"The TARDIS is on its way here - a helicopter's bringing it in," Simmons hurriedly informed him.

"How long will that take?"

Simmons shrugged. "I don't know! A few minutes? Look – you can't just _leave!_"

"I have to," the Doctor growled.

The Doctor scanned the Tower's grounds, littered with debris. Amid the chaos, he noticed two soldiers clad in black tactical armour racing up to them.

He groaned. This was the last thing he needed.

"Sir," one of them grunted. "We've been assigned to protect you."

"I don't need protecting!" the Doctor snapped, rather offended. "I don't need soldiers running after me, getting in my way! You'll just get yourselves killed."

One of the soldiers, his features resembling an eroded cliff face – the battle hardened product of too many UNIT missions – spoke up. "Brig's orders, sir. We're to assist you in any way we can."

"Oh, very well," the Doctor muttered, resignedly. He could see that these men wouldn't be refusing to follow orders. And besides, the mention of a brigadier stirred up a feeling of begrudging respect for the two. They would be here for Simmons' safety more than his own. "Stay close, and don't shoot anything unless I say so first."

* * *

UNIT Headquarters was a mess.

Kate hurried towards an operations room, furiously stabbing her phone screen. She needed to find out what was happening, now.

Soldiers were running in all directions; some racing up to the surface to deal with the alien incursion, some escorting scientific personnel to safety.

Kate eventually got through to another harassed UNIT officer. Kate silenced her as she began offloading information.

"I don't care what the PM's saying. Is the Black Archive secure?"

"Yes, ma'am," the officer responded. "It's on maximum lockdown."

"Good. We can't let anyone – or anything – get their hands on the artefacts inside there."

Without warning, the lights died. It seemed that all power to the base had been cut.

She hung up and glanced around at her surroundings. The corridor was deserted.

But Kate just… _knew _she wasn't alone.

She jumped in alarm as an eerie song echoed down the now-forbidding corridors.

_"Tick tock… goes the clock…"_

Kate drew her handgun. It was best to be prepared. Who knew what deadly reach those creatures from the Doctor's nightmares had?

_"…But who started the clock?"_

Kate backed away, as the voice edged closer.

Without lights, there were no shadows to warn her of incoming danger creeping round the corner; the light from her phone's screen was not powerful enough to breach the darkness.

Fear rising in her chest, she saw a figure shift down the corridor ahead. Her mind raced, dreading to imagine what this thing could be.

The small figure moved into the light.

It was a little girl, with a small round face beneath a wild nest of hair, wide eyes shining with tears.

Her motherly instincts kicked in, so she lowered her gun, and bent down, to speak softly to the child.

"Hello? Are you lost, young lady?"

She offered her a warm smile, and extended her hand.

"You're not safe here. Would you like me to help you?"

The little girl regarded her for a moment, cocking her head in confusion.

At first, Kate thought she hadn't understood. Perhaps she was unsure, still afraid in the dark.

"No," the little girl answered in a sweet, perky voice. "I'm going to eat you."

She opened her mouth, baring blackened teeth, and hissed at her, a wild animal.

Kate gasped, her breath crushed from her chest.

"Ma'am, keep back," a voice warned.

A hand grabbed her arm, and pulled her away from the girl.

One of her men – a red beret UNIT soldier stood between her and the child, toting a sub-machine gun.

"Don't move!" he yelled at the girl. "I won't warn you again."

His instructions were ignored – the girl hunched up, like an aggressive hound, and crept towards them.

Kate didn't recognise the soldier; a tall man with a heavily built muscular frame. His cropped, greying hair suggested that he was more mature than the other men - perhaps her age.

Kate jumped when the soldier unleashed a hail of bullets at the ground in front of the girl. She barely flinched.

"Don't shoot!" Kate shouted in disbelief. "It's a child, for goodness sake!"

"I'm acutely aware of that, ma'am," the man grunted in his thick Yorkshire accent.

They backed away, as the child coiled up, preparing to pounce.

Kate couldn't describe what she was seeing. The look in the girl's eye – she wasn't human, but a feral creature which wouldn't think twice about hurting them.

The child snarled, and burst into a sprint, closing the gap between them like lightning.

Without hesitation, Kate and the UNIT soldier turned and ran, making for the door in a desperate bid to flee from the monster.

They made it just in time, heaving the door shut before the child reached them.

It began hammering at the glass, as Kate and the soldier slid the locks shut. Fortunately, all the doors in the underground UNIT headquarters were reinforced, and could be deadlocked even without power. In theory, the whole of the base could survive a nuclear blast. It should have no problem keeping out a little girl.

Even so, Kate was worried that the door wouldn't keep them safe.

"But… it's just a girl," Kate muttered, staring at the Private, hoping he would quell her fears.

The soldier threw her a grim look. "With respect ma'am, I've just witnessed one of those… monsters rip my friend to pieces."

"Dear god… I'm sorry."

The Private shook his head. "It's not the first time I've seen a good man fall in the line of duty."

"That child was a monster…" Kate uttered, scarcely able to believe what had just happened – despite her many years facing the most extraordinary monsters, this hit too close to home.

"I'm a mother," she explained, "I have two daughters. What if this is some kind of infection that affects the young? What if my girls aren't safe?"

"I understand, ma'am," the Private added gently, "I have children too.

"Let's just get you to safety, ma'am. We can't stay down here. The whole building is overrun."

"The Doctor's outside," Kate informed him.

The soldier jerked in surprise. "The Doctor's here? Then we should get you to him, ma'am. I know a way that will get us out of here fast."

"You do?"

"Yes, ma'am. I served as a tactical advisor during the construction of this base. _'More escape routes'_, I said. There's another way out of this room."

"After you, then, private… uh…"

"Stone, ma'am," the soldier responded curtly. "Private Martin Stone."

He opened up another doorway, leading into another corridor. This corridor seemed unfinished; naked pipes and steel girders lined the walls. He held the door open for her.

"Kate," she offered in return.

Private Stone frowned, visibly confused. "Ma'am?"

"My name."

He nodded. "I know that, ma'am."


	9. The Doctor's Despair

_"This is greyhound leader,"_ the voice crackled over the UNIT soldiers' radios. _"Pandora's box is inbound."_

The Doctor, with Simmons and the two UNIT soldiers in tow, took cover behind a flattened vehicle.

"Does he mean my TARDIS?" squawked the Doctor, shooting an insulted glare at Simmons. "Rude.

"Still, the sooner I find it, the better."

Seeing a break in the chaos of destructive, flailing tentacles, the Doctor lead the others out of cover, down the street away from the Tower of London falling to ruins.

They had only run a few metres, when the Doctor spotted a movement in the surface of the road up ahead.

"Stop. Nobody move!"

The UNIT soldiers formed a diamond behind him, taking aim with their weapons.

"Doctor?" Simmons queried, nervously grasping his sleeve.

"Shh!" The Doctor held up his hand, silencing her.

The Doctor saw it again. Ripples, like waves, rolling over the surface of the concrete.

Simmons jumped as a fist broke through the ground, like a creature rising from the dead. Dozens more rose up, dripping with a wet clay-like sludge.

They were surrounded.

"I've seen these before. Hand mines," the Doctor growled. "Living weapons, developed in a war a long way from here. They'll kill you if they grab ahold of you."

"Can't you sonic them?" Simmons suggested, "Deactivate them somehow?"

"And do what? They're drawn to sound! So shut up!" the Doctor hissed.

Simmons lips pressed shut, stung by the Doctor's sharp dismissal.

The nearest hands turned curiously towards them, their single eyes blinking, before turning away again.

The Doctor and Simmons let out the breaths they had been holding.

"Absolute silence," the Doctor whispered, glancing at the UNIT soldiers. "There's enough noise elsewhere. They should leave us alone."

They all nodded, without saying a word.

_Good._ The Doctor muttered to himself. They might just survive this.

Simmons phone rang.

Her eyes snapped shut in horror.

A fist broke through the ground, inches from them.

Simmons shuffled backwards, as the hand peered at her with its single, glistening eye. The other hands stopped and turned around, intrigued by the sound.

"Emily!" the Doctor urged, pointing at her pocket. She quickly fumbled for her phone, hit the answer button, and passed the device to the Doctor, in a deadly game of hot potato. It was Kate Stewart again.

"Kate?" the Doctor hissed, trying to keep his voice down. "This isn't a good time."

"Something's inside," Kate sounded terrified – which was unlike her. "They look like children, but they can't be. They're monsters. Savages. We've locked them in, but I don't think the doors will hold them for long."

"I've seen them before, too," the Doctor growled, a realisation slowly dawning on him, "They're another of my nightmares. Whatever you do, don't let them get to you. If those creatures are here, then I really can't save you."

"What do you mean, 'another of your nightmares?'" Kate asked.

"I fear… we're trapped inside a living nightmare, populated with creatures from my memories."

"You mean this isn't real?" Kate asked. "We're in a dream?"

"No," grunted the Doctor, "This is _very real._ This is happening. You are all dying. And it's my fault. I've seen a universe of the most terrible things. These are all my nightmares. This is on me. Simply my being here is putting the whole planet in terrible danger. I need to get to the TARDIS now."

"Doctor?" Simmons ventured, her voice trembling.

He waved her away. "Hold on a moment, Emily."

"Doctor," she whimpered again, a mite more insistently this time.

He turned to her, her eyes were wide and frightened. He quickly jumped to the worst-case scenario conclusion. His eyes dropped to her feet.

One of the hands had her by the ankle, muddy fingernails digging into her skin.

"I've got to go." The Doctor hung up, and tucked the phone away.

He took Simmons' hands, and spoke calmly, but urgently.

"Emily, listen to me."

Simmons was beginning to hyperventilate.

"Look into my eyes," he commanded.

Simmons took a deep breath, and stared into the Doctor's grey eyes, concentrating on the flecks of blue and green in his irises.

"I'm going to count to three, and then you're going to step towards me."

"But it's got me. I can't move," Simmons spouted in a panic.

"No," the Doctor squeezed her hand gently, "it's just a nightmare. You'll have to trust me. Keep looking at my eyes. Tell me they're not the same eyes you trusted when we first met?"

Simmons bit her lip. She was tempted to look down, at the fickle fist of fate curled around her leg. But she daren't. She focused on the Doctor instead.

What was he asking her to do? Look into his eyes.

She had met the Doctor, a long time ago. He had saved her life on the day that everything changed. His eyes were a vivid image in her memory.

The Doctor's eyes were a different colour now, older and sadder, but they were the same. They were so full of life, seduced by the spirit of adventure. _Of course_ this was the same man she had met when she was ten years old.

She nodded, minutely. The Doctor smiled.

"Now, on three. One…"

A distant explosion fought for her attention. She jolted, but the Doctor didn't move. That was comforting, somehow.

"Two…"

The hand began to tug, pulling her down into the ground. _It's just a nightmare, _she told herself. _It's not real._

"_Three._"

The Doctor yanked her forward, and she wrapped her arms around him, as he pulled her away.

She whirled around; the hand was still clutching desperately, clenching and unclenching – trying to grab hold of something.

She released him at his request, and breathed a sigh of relief.

"Sir?" One of the soldiers whispered.

In a second, that relief petered out.

One of the Hand mines had him, too. He was a good three feet away – so close, but too far away for them to help. If any of them moved nearer, the Hand mine might sense the vibrations, and activate before they could reach the soldier resolutely standing his ground.

"I'm sorry, sir," he said quietly. He swallowed hard. Looking down, his eyes locked onto the muddy hand clenched around his foot.

"Oh god…" he whined.

The ground opened up, pulling him in quickly through the bog.

"No," the Doctor uttered, "Stay still! Don't make any kind of movement!"

The soldier was scrabbling at the Earth as the creature dragged him underground.

"No!" the Doctor yelled again. But it was useless. The man was gone.

"I'm sorry," he whispered. "I'm so sorry…"

Having picked off a victim, the Hand mines withdrew, sinking back into the earth. The concrete rippled, smoothing over the surface. It looked as though the hands had never been there.

"Sir," the surviving private spoke up, "We need to keep moving."

"We need to run," the Doctor agreed, his voice turning grim.

The sound of a chopper was growing louder. The UNIT helicopter carrying the TARDIS was in sight.

"We need to run that way!" the Doctor gestured towards the incoming helicopter.

The Doctor, Simmons, and their armed escort ran, through what was fast becoming an apocalyptic scene, towards the TARDIS, a blue beacon of hope dangling below the dark clouds.

The Doctor ran, his arms swishing frantically, like some flightless bird desperate to take to the sky.

The pilot's voice broadcast on the UNIT soldiers' radio frequency, quickly bringing the Doctor up to speed on the whereabouts of the TARDIS.

_"Windmill Twelve to Greyhound Leader, the L-Z is hot, repeat, the L-Z is hot. Are you receiving, Greyhound Leader?"_

They could see the TARDIS descending, hovering between the high-rise buildings of the London skyline.

"Over here!" the Doctor yelled, leaping across the rubble of a collapsed building.

Out of nowhere, it seemed, one of the tentacled nightmares slid into view, wrapped around a tower block. It lashed out at the chopper, which took evasive action to dodge the attack – but the pilot wasn't fast enough. The creature had mangled the helicopter's blades; it began to fall like a stone, taking the TARDIS down with it.

A death knell sounded over the radio: _"Windmill Twelve down. Windmill Twelve down."_

"No!" the Doctor gasped, his run faltering.

Simmons quickly caught up with him; the Doctor looked on in horror as the helicopter vanished from sight, crashing to the ground streets away, a great plume of black smoke rising moments later.

"The TARDIS will be fine, yes?" Simmons reassured the Doctor.

"Yes. That ship can survive almost anything. But the pilot, I fear…"

They were silent for a moment.

"Doctor," Simmons spoke up, "I need to ask you something…?"

The Doctor turned to her, nodded. _Be quick._

"On the Moonbase? How did you defeat the Arachnid Queen?"

"I didn't defeat the Arachnid Queen," the Doctor spoke, his resolution diminished. "As you might recall, _it_ defeated _me_."

"Then what _did_ happen? Someone stopped it."

"I don't know. I have my suspicions, but I don't like them. Not one bit."

Simmons paused for a moment, the words hovering over her lips.

"It's Charlie, isn't it?"

"Yes," the Doctor answered. "But it's not Charlie. This isn't his fault."

Simmons threw the Doctor a look of misunderstanding.

"It's something else," the Doctor muttered.

"What?" Simmons pressed him. "Tell me, Doctor."

"Words are powerful, Emily," the Doctor said. "So are names."

"You're not telling me, you mean? Or you don't know?"

"They're from _her_," the Doctor growled, gesturing around him. "The first nightmare. This is _all_ her."

They turned when a black SUV pulled up behind them, tyres screeching as the vehicle halted.

Kate Stewart jumped out of the passenger seat. Private Stone was behind the wheel, keeping his eye on the creatures marauding across the city. There were other UNIT officers in the back, people they'd stopped to help as they drove through the London streets to find the Doctor.

"Doctor," Kate uttered, breathless, "we need you. I'm invoking your powers as World President to take charge of all of UNIT's forces across the globe. There are monster all over the planet, and... I don't know what to do."

She was desperate. UNIT was desperate for his help.

It pained the Doctor to refuse a call for help, but he had no choice.

"I'm not staying. These creatures are here because of me. My nightmares are the fuel that's bringing them into reality."

The look of hope drained from Kate's face.

"With me gone, your own nightmares will still plague this world," the Doctor explained. "But without my nightmares among them - without the Nakrathaa, the children, and all the horrors of the Time War you should pray you'll never see - you stand a better chance of fighting them."

Kate nodded, sharing a distraught look with Simmons. "Of course, but how? What can we do?"

The Doctor grinned. "Your worst fears are walking the streets – all across the world! Crawling out from underneath the bed, creeping out of the shadows. The monsters! The demons! What can you do? _What can you do!?_"

The Doctor clapped Kate's shoulders.

"You do what you always do. Fight them! Give us hope. Let people know that they need not be afraid."

He turned to the armed UNIT guard, giving him a curt nod. "Get your soldiers to do what they should be doing – keeping people safe."

"Where will you go?" Simmons asked.

"When I find the TARDIS… far away from here…"

He backed away, without waiting to say farewell, and started to run. He didn't look back, as he raced towards the street where the helicopter had crashed; where the TARDIS would be standing, untouched amongst the wreckage.

Kate quickly regained her composure, and reasserted her control, issuing orders to the directionless UNIT soldiers disembarking from her car.

"I want all our operatives out on the streets, protecting people's homes. Any hostiles: engage. Vampires, wolves, bogeymen, monsters from your darkest dreams – shoot them all on sight. Understand?"

The soldiers exchanged perplexed glances, but responded regardless.

"Yes, ma'am," they saluted.

Kate nodded at Simmons. "It's time for humanity to fight back against the monsters. Let's just hope we can do it without him."


	10. The Rise and Fall of Charlie Drake

Charlie's heart was racing, and his head was pounding. He was one the verge of death. In extremis. He was going to die, and the only image invading his mind was that of Nate, staring down at him, worry plastered across his face. He was struggling to think clearly, and he knew that they had maybe seconds to live.

The circuit was complete. The final components – the Doctor and Charlie – were in place. Were they too late? Had he missed something else?

He felt a rush of adrenaline yank his mind back to the present.

He could see the energy coursing through the room. It was invisible, but there in his mind's eye.

Blue crackling waves of energy, burning like fire from the silver circuits.

They leapt across the stones, connected by the strips of metal – and even by the Doctor. He could see the fire arcing over him, where he stood as part of the room's circuitry.

The Doctor was engulfed in flames, but he was unaware of it. He was more concerned by the ceiling rolling down towards them.

His burning torch was extinguished, plunging them both into darkness.

There were voices whispering to him. Charlie wasn't sure if they were real, or just figments of his imagination. The Doctor didn't seem to hear it.

_The Time Lord cannot see the burning. He cannot see the fire in your soul._

The energy was closing in on him. It jumped across the stone tracks, circling and spiralling towards him. He was at the centre, and it was going to hit him.

_Show him the fire._

_Show him the burning._

The whispering voices were multiplying – more and more voices adding to the panic in his mind.

_Sssshhh…._

The susurrations in his ear made his skin crawl. He couldn't quite hear the words, but he knew what it was saying.

This was the last room. There was no way through any of these walls.

But there was always a way out – the Doctor had taught him that.

The stone ceiling was coming down, eliminating any escape in front, behind, or above them. That left down. There had to be a way down.

Charlie's hand had made contact with the crystal embedded in the floor, at the centre of the circuit pattern.

As he removed his fingers, he saw that the gemstone was glowing. Something was happening. Some mechanism had been activated.

A grinding noise. Like a whetstone sharpening a sword, or an old smoker coughing up their lungs.

In a strange way, it reminded Charlie of the TARDIS engines; ancient, failing machinery – yet something which felt very much alive.

As the ceiling above them descended, so did the floor.

The stone slabs in their concentric circle pattern began to unravel beneath them, and the floor uncoiled into a spiral staircase, lowering the Doctor and Charlie to safety.

A flint-stone mechanism sparked flames into life, igniting a circle of torches recessed in the stone.

Finally, the grinding stones crunched to a halt. The ceiling settled in its new position. The room around them had transformed into a grand antechamber.

The Doctor stared at him.

"How did you do that?" he asked.

"I'm not sure."

"Well, that was a close call," the Doctor admitted, brushing the dust off his jacket. He offered Charlie an excited grin, as if the ordeal they had just experienced was more exhilarating than terrifying. "I thought we were dead for sure then. Well done."

A large archway had opened up in one the side of the chamber, ejecting them into another dimly lit chamber.

Around the archway were familiar carvings – more of the three-dimensional writing the Doctor had spotted before.

Charlie was buried in his thoughts, as the Doctor bounded up to the carvings, consulting the sonic screwdriver as he ran his fingers along the words.

"The sonic screwdriver's completed the translation," he half-mumbled an explanation, greatly fascinated by the findings rather than how he had managed it, "As much as it can, anyway."

Charlie wandered through, taking in the sight of a forged metal altar, blackened by the centuries.

The Doctor's voiced echoed into the room.

"This temple is dedicated to energy… life force… maybe power. Yes, power. A being of great power once resided here. It ruled over the people of the world, subduing them with fear… No, mind control…?"

As the Doctor spoke, Charlie was drawn to the effigies of giants attending the altar. Each a hulking beast with four arms, presenting a blue gemstone in their sculpted hands.

"There was a revolution. The power was lost."

The biggest statue of them all, a terrifying wrought iron image of a snake taking pride of place at the head of the room, froze Charlie to the spot. He was transfixed by its cold stare, its corroded fangs. The thing looked like it had been turned to stone mid-strike.

"But not… forever?" the Doctor finished. He sounded perplexed by the translation. Perhaps it was wrong, or missing an important word. Its message wasn't clear.

The buzzing of the sonic screwdriver told Charlie that the Doctor had joined him at the strange altar.

"The walls are reinforced," the Doctor concluded. "Deadlocked."

This didn't matter, Charlie decided. Whatever the Doctor was prattling about wasn't important.

"Those gemstones the statues are holding," the Doctor scanned them, casting a puzzled glare over the sculptures, "They're a barrier of some kind, focussing energy into the centre of this chamber."

_What _was_ important? _Charlie's mind was whispering to him, now. _What really mattered?_

The Doctor whirled round, his disturbed gaze landing on the largest statue. His lips murmured words in silence.

_The Doctor has that power. He can change time._

_You've waited so long for this. You want this to happen._

"This isn't a temple…," the Doctor uttered, "It's a prison. All those puzzles, designed to stop just anyone breaking in."

_You just have to let that desire in._

_Let it in, and make everything better._

Charlie finally spoke. "You can change it."

His words were clear, strong. Not shy, or uncertain, like Charlie's voice usually was.

That distinction was enough to make the Doctor stop, turn around, and listen to him.

"You have that power." Charlie's head was spinning; his sudden revelation was intoxicating. "You have the power to change time!"

The Doctor raised an eyebrow; alert to Charlie's commanding tone.

"Is this why we're here, Charlie? Is this why you brought us here?" the Doctor asked, very carefully, his arms outstretched to calm him.

"You can change time," Charlie repeated.

The Doctor frowned. "We've talked about this, remember? The web of time is complicated. Every decision ever made is woven through time, setting it on its course. We can't just go back and change whatever we like."

"But you've done it before, haven't you? Changed time," Charlie insisted more aggressively.

"And I've damaged it." The Doctor blinked, struggling to choose the right words to reach Charlie with. "I simply can't change something in your past if it has any way resulted in you standing here, right now, saying these exact words. To do so would cause unimaginable damage to reality. It would break every rule I've ever lived by!"

"You save people all the time, but you won't do this because it _'breaks your rules?'_" Charlie shouted, exasperated. "You're such a hypocrite! You have one rule for yourself and one rule for everyone else!"

The Doctor peered into the boy's eyes, which flicked away, avoiding his own. There was something there – a shine. A dangerous, manic glint, and it made his hearts twinge. Because he recognised it – madness. It was madness he'd seen in other eyes far more dangerous than Charlie's.

"This is about Nate," the Doctor realised.

"How… how do you know?"

The look of apprehension in the boy's face betrayed his surprise that the Doctor had started to uncover his secret.

"I didn't, but I do now," the Doctor admitted. "So that's what all of this has been about? That's why you came with me…?"

"You have to save him. That's what you do!" Charlie was almost begging. "You're the Doctor. You make everything better! That's what you're _for!_"

"No, Charlie, that's not…"

"You said you'd help me, Doctor. You promised!"

"I can't…"

Charlie's bottom lip began trembling uncontrollably.

He rubbed the back of his neck in agitation. The Doctor wasn't listening to him.

After everything the Doctor had said, after everything they'd been through… he wasn't going to help him. The Doctor always broke the rules for himself, or his friends – but not him.

That one thought made him furious. It wasn't fair!

Charlie's eyes were burning, and he was desperately trying not to cry, but that just made him angrier.

That serpent was leering over him, taunting him – daring him to make his move.

"I wasn't there for him, when he needed me. I didn't see it. And now he's _dead_." The words tumbled out, releasing all the emotion he'd kept boiling inside him for months.

He turned to the Doctor, his shoulders broad in an aggressive stance.

"Save him, Doctor. I will not let him die. I will not let Nate die!" he screamed.

The Doctor, astonished, looked at his friend: confused, angry and desperate.

No. This wasn't right.

"Charlie… stop," the Doctor commanded, levelly. "This isn't you."

As the Doctor stepped towards him, Charlie whipped something from his back pocket.

A knife. The blade gleamed in the light from the burning torches around the room.

_Where the hell did he get that? _The Doctor growled under his breath.

"Stay back!" Charlie warned.

The Doctor did not, and continued stepping cautiously towards him, his hands extended in an open gesture to show he meant the boy no harm.

"Or what? Are you going to kill me?"

Charlie shuddered; his face plastered with fury, but didn't respond.

"You know that won't do either of us any good," the Doctor spoke as kindly as he could.

Charlie's eyes flickered towards the stone floor, and the Doctor saw his chance. Before Charlie could react, he lunged, and grabbed the boy's wrist, twisting the blade from his fingers. It clattered to the floor.

The Doctor's gaze fell upon the cuts on Charlie's arm - zigzagging, exactly like a snake…

"But that's…!" the Doctor exclaimed.

He had seen a mark like that before – a long time ago.

"Charlie, that's-"

He didn't finish his exclamation, as Charlie swung a sloppy right hook at him, which the Doctor blocked easily.

With a cry of "Haik!" the Doctor knocked Charlie on his back, winding him.

Charlie gasped for breath, baring his teeth at the Doctor, almost hissing with fury.

"I'm sorry, I should have realised…" the Doctor backed away from Charlie – back the way they had come - as everything fell into place in the Doctor's mind. Every action Charlie had taken suddenly made sense.

"Charlie, listen to me…" the Doctor pleaded with him, as he saw the rage in the boy's eyes. It was a look of such malice, that the Doctor began to lose hope. Was Charlie still in control of his body? Of his mind? Or was something else?

"No, Doctor," spat Charlie, "_you _listen to _me! _We're-"

Charlie stopped. He jerked suddenly, as an incredible pain surged up his spine. He grasped at his hair. The Doctor could see that he was in agony.

All that violence was gone from him in an instant, transformed into some intangible force which was now lashing down upon him. Something was taking Charlie from him.

For Charlie, it felt like a blade was being twisted in his brain.

Something sliced its way through his mind, burning through his consciousness.

The pain was rending him in two. Nothing the Doctor said or did made it through to him.

He screamed, but his lungs were burning, and the sounds died in his throat.

The pain stopped, and Charlie looked at the Doctor, breathless, his eyes filled with fear. His legs buckled, and he toppled forwards.

The Doctor lunged for him, and caught him, grabbing his arms.

Charlie looked desperately into the Doctor's anxious old eyes, as the realisation of what he had just done became apparent to him. Oh god, he had just threatened the Doctor.

He tried to shake away the dream-like quality of the scene around him, but he couldn't. Maybe he _was_ dreaming. He wasn't sure; his senses were deceiving him.

He focused on the Doctor's pupils, but he was too confused to concentrate properly. He needed the Doctor… just to make things better.

He sobbed. "Please help me."

The Doctor grimaced, his face a mask of horror, as Charlie tore away from him, his body thrashing and jerking wildly; possessed.

The boy's form seemed to be melting, transforming; his limbs shrivelling away, his neck elongating. His skin charred, the molecules of his being burning and morphing into something new.

The Doctor backed away, muttering in resentment.

A booming sound echoed around him, as a voice began to speak; deep, smooth, and feminine. "I am _reborn,_ old man. My sacred temple has returned to me, and I am reborn, again!"

"No," the words of protest barely made it through the Doctor's throat, as he staggered backwards. The sounds he made were weak, fragile. Pathetic. "No!"

"This is my grave and my cradle. My prison and my freedom. Witness my rebirth, Doctor. _Witness my return!_"

Charlie was enveloped in a sudden vortex of atoms; black shapes swam together as he began to transform into the very shape the Doctor had feared: a serpent.

For he had encountered this entity before. Time and time again this creature reared its demonic head, turning temptation to chaos, dragging him and his friends through hell.

This thing was a legend, a myth, wielding unspeakable power. Its name:

"The Mara!" the words passed through the Doctor's lips in disbelief.

The newborn creature's eyes snapped open; yellow orbs slashed through the centre by a thin black pupil. The eyes _glistened_.

"Every child," it spoke, "throughout the cosmos will dream. And the dreams… will turn to _nightmares!_"

Disheartened, the Doctor turned, and ran.

* * *

**Author's Notes:**

**Wait, did that just happen? No, I can't kill Charlie, I like him too much.**

**Perhaps we are already in a nightmare of the mind created by the Mara? Perhaps nothing has been real this whole time? **

* * *

**In case any of you are interested, I have uploaded several tracks to soundcloud to accompany the Twelfth Doctor Adventures, including 'To Temptation', to bring the adventures to life a little. **(As _Wanderer_In_Time_, /user-651208930)


	11. Afterlife

_Now…_

Charlie groaned and opened his eyes. He felt exhausted. Every limb, every tendon, every synapse of the brain ached.

The white light of the room was blinding, and he squinted, until he adjusted to the brightness.

His head felt so heavy; he barely had the energy to move it.

It took him a moment to realise where he was.

He was no longer in the temple – that much was clear. He was sat in a chair. That chair was at a long, ornate dining table, adorned with fragile china cups and spindly metal decorations.

Charlie frowned. _What the hell?_

"Hello!" The woman, who was sat in a chair opposite him, grinned.

Charlie stared blankly at her. The woman was tall; she held herself in a rigid, upright posture. She looked like a Victorian nanny, smartly dressed in a plum dress jacket. A purple Mary Poppins.

"Who… who are you?" Charlie spluttered.

"I'm Missy!" she sang. "Would you care for a cup of tea?"

She gestured towards the gilded pot in the centre of the neatly arranged crockery.

"Chamomile? Oodlong?" Missy suggested. "Or would you prefer a drop of Earl Grey?"

"Where am I?" Charlie asked suddenly, a panic rising in his chest. "Where's the Doctor?"

"Ah!" she scratched the back of her head with a chuckle. "That would be rather difficult to explain, dear."

He leapt out of the chair, without stopping to prevent it crashing backwards onto the floor.

Missy watched him with a sigh, and poured herself a cup.

Charlie dashed over to the curtains, heart pounding, and yanked them open.

Beyond the French windows of this renaissance palace, there was a small garden with immaculately trimmed grass, and a blossoming apple tree standing proudly in the centre.

He turned back to the woman.

"I need to get back to the Doctor! He's in danger."

"He's _always_ in danger, dear," Missy crooned. "That's his thing."

He looked back outside. Was this Earth? In the past? Or the future?

"You're not on Earth," the woman explained, apparently reading his mind.

A wave of thoughts rushed through Charlie's head. He was struggling to remember the last thing that had happened to him. They were in the temple. Something bad had happened…

"How did we get out?" he muttered aloud. "When did…?"

"I'm rather afraid you didn't," Missy explained sympathetically, watching with a smile as Charlie's features twisted through a dozen expressions of confusion and realisation.

She took a sip of her steaming-hot tea.

"You mean…?"

"That's right," she simpered. "You're dead!"

Charlie sagged, gaping at the woman in shock.

"What…?" he uttered, breathless.

How could this be happening? How could he have…? _Oh._ He had died. He had died in that temple.

"My… condolences, as they say." Missy stood up, and quickly joined him by the window.

She grasped the back of his tremoring neck, her fingernails digging into his skin. Gesturing outside at the glorious early morning sunshine bathing the garden in a golden glow, Missy beamed.

"Welcome to heaven!"

* * *

_**To Be Continued...**_

Charlie has to face reality after his apparent death on an alien world, so far away from home. The Doctor's old enemy the Mara has returned, bringing the universe's darkest nightmares to life. How can Charlie stop the rise of the Mara from the afterlife?

Charlie and Missy return in _Real._


End file.
